August Birds during the Heatwaves

Sparrows

From the hedgerow, flee!
A flock of fast sparrows flaunt
The field’s dry despair

Grey Heron

Three grey herons fly
Grey flags over grey rooftop
Fanfare for new life

 

The Summer Seagulls

This year, two gull chicks
Speckled pebbles on the ground
By factory door

You sent me photos
Each week, while seagulls watched them
Turn to grey goblins

Shrieking banshee birds
Surviving the heat, the dry
To fully fledge and fly

Summer seagulls swoop
Overhead. Their cold cry cuts
Goodbye, goodbye, Bye!

Kestrel

Heatwave ends today
Morning rainstorm, break cover
Brown graze of feathers

Long-Tailed Tits

Notes ring, raindrop song
Through wet boughs ten long-tailed tits
Sing sweet harmonies

 

Cattle Egret

Intricate weaving
Across a loom of late grass
Egrets thread cow herd

Apricot hair comb
White feather boa, black silks
Fine for a field day

A line of cattle
Punctuated by white birds
Full stop, comma, dash

 

On a day trip to Weymouth in October

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

 

Spotted on a trip to London

In a Field

Twenty pheasants have
A sporting chance now winter
Has turned into Spring

Red kites hovering
Almost still as we rush past 
Train-bound to London

Great Bustard?

On a chalk ploughed hill
I glimpse a giant bird. Wait…
Did I just see that? 

The fish pond, brimfull
A mirror for morning light
Heron reflects there

Into London

Leafy suburbs pass
Trees home for two woodpeckers
Woodland corridor   

On the Thames today
Two swans wend their way past boats
And mud larks; low tide!

October Birds

October

Seagulls fly past fields
Like a fishing net dragging
Autumn tides to shore

Starlings arriving
In little drifts; falling leaves
Autumn flurries fly

Weymouth

Walking Weymouth beach
He feeds the beachcombing crows
Who follow his lead

On Westham Bridge, Weymouth

By the bridge waiting
Patience of a saint, stone still
Heron prays for fish

By Beaples Standing Stone

Rook rubs the sky clean
A feather duster dancing
Around the old stone

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

 

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’

Herons and Swans

Herons

Still heron, woven

Into the weft of the reeds

Designs on small fish

Long neck poised, beak sharp

Black-flecked greybeard ruffles breeze

Eyes pierce the stream's heart

In the flooded field

Looking glass lake reflects his

Elegant attire

Five Swans

Five grey swans fly low

Wings lift the cold, lead sky up

Over the Levels

Heron

On the roof, long legg'd

A strange feathered weather vane
Cranes round: points to ponds

The Heron

Wings wipe the sky dry
Anglepoise across the rain
Back to the river