brolga

plural brolgas

1. A large grey crane (Antigone rubicunda, syn. Grus rubicunda), of northern and eastern Australia.First known use 19th c.

   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.

   2006, Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 241

   1 more example

   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 […].

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VII, in Capricornia, page 90

   Synonyms: Australian crane, native companion