To the grazing cows or steers they stick close by <br />To devour tiny things that from big hooves hop or fly <br />The cattle egrets for them an apt name <br />Though shy of people when with cattle they seem tame. <br /> <br />The cattle egrets travel far and wide <br />For miles and miles through the brown countryside <br />Lanky and fragile and so slow in flight <br />In Winter paddocks a familiar sight. <br /> <br />Cattle egrets as white as new fallen snow <br />Are birds that every country person know <br />And though they fly to places near and far <br />You will always find them near where cattle are. <br /> <br />From big hooved mammals never far away <br />They hang around the grazing herds all day <br />And at twilight as darkness cloaks the sky <br />They fly off to their roosting trees nearby.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cattle-egrets/
