Magpie
Four magpies fighting
In the road, oblivious
To me passing by
Magpie finds long stick
Jackdaw wants it, sky scuffle!
Fight, flight, Magpie wins
Robin
In the blackthorn boughs
Robin; red lantern on branch
Among the blossom
Goldfinch
Goldfinches riff free
Jazz. Syncopated beats on
Bare willow branches
House Sparrow
Up on the bird box
You call. ‘House mate, house mate, see
My new house for thee.’
Chaffinch
She checks out the lawn
Among the starling flock she’s
A pale stripe in spots
Robin
Long-tailed Tit
In the willow; twigs
All bedecked with feather bows
Singing in the pink
Marsh Harrier
Harrier over reeds
Hunting warrior in bronze
Feathered armour
Gold wings in late sun
Struck from Thor’s hammer, bright streak
Of talons and beak
Starling Murmuration
Front row gathering
We wait for the performance
A winter ballet
Dusk orchestrates them
A wild weaving chorus line
Dancing wings as one
Sky whale! Sky whale! Swan!
Starlings flow shapes across sky
Nature’s movie show
Long-Tailed Tit
I pause for parcels
There! On the little oak tree
You chatter to me
On the sixth of January the starling flock flies out at dawn in minus six degrees centigrade and I notice pattern groups within the larger grid of flying birds.
Starling DRS
Ahh! My speckled friends
I suspect that you expect
Me to feed you seed
Happy gardener
Winter grass aeriated
By your busy beaks
The starling posse
Thirty strong. Run for your lives
Earthworms and beetles!
Alternative:
Starlings
This morning’s laundry
Already flapping in breeze
Starlings on a line
In the grey rainlight
A steady drizzle of wings
Storm clouds of starlings
A303
Starlings on power
Lines; two lanes of traffic queued
Waiting to arrive
A37
Seagulls billow up
White and grey rollers breaking
Over ploughed brown field
Buzzard, bare legs bent
On telephone pole
Meditating now
Lodmoor
Heron feather-cloak’d
Skims the scrubland with black wings
Fashionably late
Weymouth Seafront
Wagtail, dapper chap
Dip and bow to you too, Sir!
Waterline parade
A37
A pair of kites hang
High above the hilltop here
Taut in the updraft
A magical sight
As a merlin lands nearby
Eyes mesmerised now
Near the River Brue
Two swans, a poem
Written in a rhyne, gently
Drift in dusk’s warm light
