Nature's Opportunists Poem by Francis Duggan

In the late Fall in weather damp and cool
The cattle egrets back in Warrnambool
From cattle they are never far away
And with the herds they spend their waking day.

Crickets and insects and other small things they eat
That fly or hop clear of the big trampling feet
The cattle help them by exposing for them their prey
They are Nature's opportunists one might say.

The big animals the small white egrets do not fear
To the big hooves they walk dangerously near
And though the cattle little interest in them show
The bond of trust between them seem to grow.

In Nature creatures on each other co-depend
The bovine to the egret is a good friend
And in kind the egret the farmer does repay
By keeping slugs and insects and locusts at bay.

The cattle egrets they are back once more
To the brown paddocks by the ocean shore
Amongst the herd insects and such they eat
That fly or hop clear of big trampling feet.