Where do the Birds Go?
Samantha Weerasekera
Samantha Weerasekera was an active participant in our online writing project for disabled writers, Writing from Home, a collaboration between Writers Victoria and Valid during the 2020 Covid restrictions. She writes children’s stories. She also took part in the 2020 Dulcie Stone Writers Awards, contributing this story about the birds she met on her daily walks.
The birds go to Sandringham Beach because they like to have holidays by the sea. Crows, seagulls, Indian mynas and other birds go to Sandringham. I walk on bush pathways and listen to the bird songs. I can hear the hungry baby birds in their nests. The parent birds speak other languages because they visit other countries like Sri Lanka, England and France. As I pass by, I guess what type of bird is singing in the bushes and make friends with the birds. Then they are not strangers to me anymore.
The Indian mynas visit me for the crumbs from my picnic lunch and I feed them a banana broken into bird sized chunks. I can see some birds are drinking Chai tea together in their nests. They drink their tea without milk because milk is bad for them. I need to shoo them away from the ice cream truck because of this and they keep coming back!
Most birds love the sunny beach weather but when it rains the birds scatter to their nests. Sometimes they choose to get wet though and they peck the soft soil for a feed of worms. When the sun comes back the noisy birds dart about together and sing. I do not want their holidays to end.
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