The Predacious Butcherbird

I see the butcherbird before I cross the fence.
It's flighty, like it cannot decide whether to flee
or if the safe spot on the roof can still protect
it and the bit of something clenched in its beak.
I think it's a corn cob, at first, lined with divets
where kernels grew before they were lost,
but no corn grows in northwestern Australia.
I step closer, still carrying my bucket of supplies,
and the bird hops further away, ramming its beak
into the rubber tire on the roof in a way that assures
me it holds food and I probably don't want to see
what a butcherbird holds dear and splatters on rubber.
Curiosity wins out and I look again, hoping its
not another fledgling lost to the large, predacious bird.
This time I see honey comb in the patterned object,
but that cannot be true either, because this bird
wouldn't eat such a thing even if it was built here.
I move on with my task, giving up on identifying
the object. A few minutes later, though, I glance
up again and the abstract object suddenly snaps
into shape like an automatic focus on a camera.
I grimace, look away, and curl in on myself a little
can see the scales, the patterns, the front legs
of half of a lizard hanging out of that ominous beak.