Speckled greens and stocky, catcalling from high in the treetops and flitting down to the mossy patch worked paths, a Cat Bird cries in the beauty of the day.
Liana highways stretch to the canopy of the green skyscrapers of the forest. Orchids and ferns cling and festoon the crooks and out stretched branches of this green tapestry.
Tree Creepers hop vertically, clawing into the fissures of the bark and peck for grubs and insects.
Stop, and the song of the forest is sweet to the ears, a mixture of bird calls, bees buzzing, insect wings fluttering and humming, and a soft zephyr sighing through the trees and rustling the leaves.
Orange fungi decorates an ancient fallen log with a zillion new born baby trees nurtured in the cool, moist, moss carpet.
Black feathered, with a wattle of sun yellow and rich red, a Brush Turkey searches the littered floor, foraging, raking and feeding, scraping back the rich fertile layer, gardening this emerald track of land.
Coolness descends and the air is moist, rain droplets pitter patter throughout the myriad of leaves, dripping mini waterfalls, splatter and plop as the droplets fall and land in puddles of warm fresh rain.
Rufous rumped, with a fan of wispy grey whirling and twirling, calling to its shy mate, calling the songs of all the birds of the forest, the showy ground dweller runs through a routine of whirring, buzzing, laughing and soothing melodies of small shy birds.
Yellow Robins whistle in the rain, flicking their feathers to dry their backs and wings.
The soft rumbling of the storm passes by, and the light shards gleam through the cathedral like wetness. The days magnificence is heralded by the hoo hoo hooing of an Emerald Dove, running and bobbing along the tracks in the glen, stopping, bobbing, turning, bobbing and hooing, then disappearing behind a garden of rhubarb and lime coloured Rasp ferns.
This is a slice of the magnificence of an Australian Sub Tropical Rain Forest.
We may not be able to experience all of the wonders that are present in these vast worlds but a slice of this can be created in our own backyard. Imagine your very own habitat, native bird attracting, abundant with green and textured leaves, and a canopy to cool the summer heat. Water still and flowing, enticing Dragon Flies, Lady Birds, frogs, tadpoles and pond skipping insects. A happy home in the vastness we call the city.