Riverine
The Parramatta River is managed, much of its length channelled with concrete embankments, its stream controlled by overflow dams strategically placed across its breadth. It gets its share of wildlife, however, like the lone pelican who has been haunting the precinct of the Church Street bridge these last weeks, and joined now by a pair of native swans, of antipodean black, perhaps having followed us in their migration from Lake Burley Griffin? As large as the northern, white variety, and similar in mien, Australian swans are disconcerting creatures in respect to their call: a noise not unlike that of one of those squeezey toys, the kind that peeps out an artificial bleat. Such imposing birds, particularly this funereal variety, should have a more impressive honk, but then they’d be geese.