Tag: birds

bird on a wire

starling on pylon

 

From his aerial perch
a starling
chips at the wintering sky

 
 
I’m much better at recognising birds when I see them than by their calls, but I’ve started to recognise the jays and the azure winged magpies, though I really only know one from the other by the number of voices heard at once; the hoopoe is quite familiar, too, and I’ve now come to associate a sort of hollow rattling cackle with the starlings. (I was going to describe the noise as a ‘grackle’, but find that that is actually the name of a bird, which is a bit confusing.)
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bisy; backson

Like Christopher Robin, I have been “BISY” and there haven’t been as many updates to the blog recently as I’d have liked.

spotted feather

I found this feather while walking to the village the other day. I assume it’s a woodpecker feather, though I suppose it could belong to a hoopoe – we certainly see the abubilla more often than the pájaro carpintero, which I hear sometimes but catch sight of only on very rare occasions.

The feather markings made me think of the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson, although, of course, the Backson isn’t the only mythical beast that is spotted.
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autumn

It’s the first day of autumn, and last night there was a harvest moon. That makes me think I should be posting some poetry, but I can’t find anything particularly suitable.

Still, the weather really is quite autumnal today, and if it stays this way, it wouldn’t surprise me if the swallows started gathering early for migration. I’ve had telephone wires and communications on my mind a lot recently, so maybe this will fit the bill:
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the way it really happened

Discussing the draft of a new poem last night, I found myself close to using the phrase “but that’s the way it really happened” as justification for including an apparently inessential word.

This startled me. After all, I’ve made it clear that I don’t think of poetry as autobiographical. Life is a stepping off point for poetry, but I think facts can – and should – be sacrificed if they interfere with the poetical worth of the writing. So what made this particular occasion different?
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immortal bird

At half past one this morning, I was tossing and turning, unable to sleep because of the loud birdsong outside my window.

I’m not at all good with identifying birds from their songs, but I’m pretty sure it was a nightingale singing from the cherry tree. It stopped briefly when I put the light on, but then, from what I remember – I did get some intermittent sleep – it continued all through the night until I was awake again around six. Gradually, as it got lighter, the voice was joined by others, and now it’s daylight, there is still much birdsong, but it is more scattered as they are all off about their usual business.
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