House Martins in September

Sycamore seeds spin
While House martins circle tree
Spirals everywhere

 

Swallow and swift gone
House martin hesitates; a
Late summer harvest

A week of sunshine
And the House Martin’s picnic
Fills the country sky

July Birds

 

Five bluetits flit past
Green as apples on the branch
Old orchard; new life

 

The buzzard circles
Finding a thermal. Freed from
Our mortal scope now

 

Wells

Moorhen mother sits
Surrounded by Saint’s waters
Patient protectress

This Year's Birdbox Nest

This year a pair of House Sparrows chose to raise their noisy chicks in one of our birdboxes, visible from our kitchen window. The most entertaining and enchanting family to observe and the silence, now they have fledged, is palpable. We think there were at least two chicks but we missed them fledging so there could well have been more. 

The Sparrow Box

Sparrow parents spin
Frantic food dash, fly, fly, bug
Woodlouse for lunch, yuk!

Godzilla and Bro
That’s what I nicknamed the pair
Roaring for food now

Empty Nester

A quiet kitchen
You have fledged, nest-box now cold
Little sparrows flown

Swifts over the Garden

Two swifts, sickle-sharp
Are honed on a whetstone sun
High in a June sky

On a Sunday walk and early this morning.

Stubble-field ballet
Swallows swoop and weave round bales
Bravo! More! Encore!

Egret overhead!
White yacht on a blue sky tide
Fair winds for flying

Fifteen Little Egret in a Field

Little Egret Troupe

Feats of Flying! Fan Dancing

and Fierce Spear Fishing

 
Wading through silver
While house martins wheel above
Mirrored in the field

 

Goldfinches in the Willows

 

Verge-side willows slump
While two goldfinch strip catkins
Of their down; spring snow!

 

Clouds of catkin down
Drift in the warm Spring sunshine
Goldfinch weather now