Remember the Playpus?

[Poppytree]

It should be PLATYPUS but I can't edit the title!

A couple of weeks ago I shared pictures and news about one of our strange animals at a local wildlife sanctuary.
Here's a lovely poem by Pam Ayres which sums him up so beautifully .... enjoy

The duck-billed platypus, small aquatic friend
Made from the pieces God had over at the end.
According to His reckoning (He'd not been wrong before)
He hadn't made enough: He needed one mammal more.

He studied all the corners in His cupboard large and bare
A little foot here, and a little nose there,
A scrap of fur, a feather, nothing anyone would miss
And God said, "Oh Good God... Yes?..... What can I make out of this?"

There was a funny flat tail and a great enormous beak
Which had lain in the cupboard for a year and a week.
There were four webbed feet in the manner of a duck
And hanging on a peg, a furry overcoat for luck!

So the turn of the platypus came to be fitted
God sat him down and honestly admitted
That the finished platypus might appear a little odd,
'But look on the bright side of it,' said God.

'You can swim in the river, you can paddle in the creek,
You can tackle anybody with a great big beak,
There's a tail for a rudder or alternatively legs
And by way of consolation you've got babies and eggs.'

So God took all the pieces into Workshop One
And there he told the men the sort of thing he wanted done.
The Carpenter and Plumber stroked the platypus's neck
And said, "Don't you upset him, he cant run, but he can peck!"

So the platypus was made, and his beak was firmly rooted
And God found him a home where he would not be persecuted.
They packed him up and sent him with his tail neatly furled
In a brown paper parcel marked "Australia, The World."