Who am I ? Can you guess ?

Who am I ?

I’m sexy,
positively aphrodisiacal
pursued by all,
it is my fate
to end up being late
upon a plate.

Bug-eyed I am,
long-necked, spindly-legged,
size of a turkey –
in love with my own beauty,
good at dating
puffing out white feathers,
pacing out my courtship dance
expert at mating.

“Falcon’s delight”
they call me, what a plight !
enough to make me die of fright
in mid-flight
as one swoops down to knock
the living daylight
out of me.

A narrow squeak it was to dodge
those catastrophic claws
that lethal beak
I’ll never know quite how
I did it, perhaps by taking refuge
in this verse
for fear of finding
something worse.

Surely you’ve guessed by now
my true identity
no chimera am I
but,,, a houbara ! Wow !
Today it is your task
to help me live beyond these lines
to celebrate and procreate
so there will be
houbaras enough
to populate
eternity.

see: International Fund For Houbara Conservation