brolga

noun

1. A large grey crane (Antigone rubicunda, syn. Grus rubicunda), of northern and eastern Australia.

   “But he did not value Red Ochre simply as a grazing-lease. At times it was to him six hundred square miles where grazing grew and brolgas danced in the painted sunset and emus ran to the silver dawn […].”

   “We wade through the delicate water, the moon spilling on our colourless bodies. Brolgas ruffling their wings against water ribbons, making the muddy bath flinch in coiling waves.”