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

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

Starlings and Garden Birds

 

Draped across the line
Pegged out like laundry drying
A starling blanket

Last light! Not home yet
Starlings stream past my window
Super-highway skies

Garden Birds

On the bird feeder
Robin, sparrow and bluetit
Playing seed roulette

A Bright Balance of Feathers: Paperback Edition

 

My author copies have arrived! It’s always exciting to open a parcel and find a new book. I’m so pleased to have released this new edition of ‘A Bright Balance of Feathers’ in paperback form. It has a matt cover featuring one of my photos of a robin taken at Ham Wall Nature Reserve on the Somerset Levels and it’s light enough to take on a walk with enough space around the poems for you to write your own nature haiku and notes.

Find it for sale here on Amazon: A Bright Balance of Feathers: Bird Haiku: Amazon.co.uk: Herlihy, P L: 9798386790400: Books

 

Autumn Rooks, Long-tailed Tits and a White Swan

 

Rooks in a red field

Shaved of its corn. Forage! Fight!

Beaks glean Autumn light

 

Late evening calls, hark!

The long-tailed tits sing and flit

In warm company

 

White swan in the rhyne

Wings against a white skyline

Singing the old songs

Barn Swallows near Glastonbury Tor

A sight for sore eyes

No wing more uplifting than

Summer’s first swallow

Crow Tree Picnic

 

In a circle, eyes

Watching our every mouthful

Crows, crumbs, closer, caw…

 

Hoodwinked and wary

The Family gathers

Extorting their dues

Crows, The Nothe, Weymouth

Great Crested Grebe Fishing

 

 

Diving! Breakneck speed
A bronze tipped arrow streaks past
Silver bubbles rise

Radipole Lake, Weymouth

Along the A303

Wiltshire Field 

The partridges search 

(Though no pear tree is nearby) 

For fruits of the field 

 

At Stonehenge 

Ancient autumn fields 

In gold mist reveal Hern’s deer 

While the rooks count rocks

Buzzard. Shoulders hunched
Hands in pockets; loitering
Mist curfews mischief

Cutting through the chaff
With tail cane. The pheasants chat
Pleasantries and that

On finding the remains of a starling in the garden

 

Cold on paving slab
A corpse of feathers & bones
Falcon’s dinner plate

 

I will draw you, now
Since you were drawn out by death
A sketch with no song

In the Winter Fields

On a silver string
White bows rise. A flying kite
Of seagulls and wind

Sparrows

Sparrow and his brood
Are moving in. The neighbours
Nesting; note the noise

March 2020

Six for gold: get in!

But, turns out, there’s no magic
Magpie cash machine

Open air concert

Drum roll for a dawn chorus

Woodpecker warms up

#haiku #birds #nature

Winter Wren, Starlings and Garden Birds

Winter Wren

Among winter boughs

Little wren (walnut brown) bobs

Living netsuke

The Starlings Gather

A Starling garland

On power lines overhead

Decorating me!

Tits in the Garden

Count them; count them all

Each little bird a blessing

Blue, Coal, Long-tailed, Great

A buzzard and some swallows

The Buzzard Above

Circling high above

A slow Ferris wheel ride; free

In carnival skies

Soulful Autumn blues

A crisp air and slow tempo

Solo turn on stage

A singular truth:

To know the limitless sky

Wing and a prayer

Swallows along Cinnamon Lane

The lane (bursting ripe

Hedgerows laden with late fruit)

Is your flightpath home

Crane flies, mosquitoes

Wasps, fruit flies, midge and darter

Alfresco mixed grill…

A flash of summer!

Then two more; swallow wings dip

The deepening lane

Falcon, wren and sparrows

Peregrine Falcon

Hawk-eyed, on the fence

Warily watching for food

Bird table sentry

Silent dawn chorus

Falcon glides emptyhanded

No song for supper

Wren

The wren on the fence

A little feather whistle

Blown away by wind

Sparrows

Good day! Good day! Hey!

Dapper in flat cap and tweed

Sparrows chat away

  

Under the rooftiles

A secret stash of treasure

Jack sparrow’s new nest

Wales

Sixteen kites strung out

Above the black hills, hanging

On storm Gareth’s tail

Lone kite, a bright flag

Above the bracken field, keeps

Watch on the wild wind

The heron; stillness

Personified. Unmoving

Until camera clicks!

Grey heron lingers

Haunting the water margins

Hidden from my lens

Heron Flypast

Low bird overhead

Solid grey undercarriage

Heron ‘747’

Long-tailed Tits

In between the trees

Bright baubles string out mid-air

Birds light up the dusk