Big Garden Birdwatch 2025

I counted you up

Each vital wing a prayer:

Nature’s abundance

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

 

Ham Wall, July 2023

Bittern

Bittern; subtle brown
feathers flying past the hide
Herringbone beauty

 

Egret

Feather tutu flies
Musical winds wafting wings
Jete! Jete! Glide!

 

Swans

In the green canal
Among the waterlilies
White sails drifting by

Graceful necks bending
Low to kiss their reflections…
Pondweed slurps instead!

 

Cormorant

Sky hatchet cutting
A swathe of leaden landscape
Skewering reedbeds

Jays

Just so much gossip
In the branches overhead
Two jays chat at lunch

 

Marsh Harrier

Broad wings weave the wind
Around a stand of willows
While rain clouds billow

Blackcap and the pirate rooks

These two haiku are from one walk around the local area:

Blackcap

 In the hedgerow hops
Among thorned berries, blackcap
Autumn hat adorned

The Pirate Rooks

Above the grey stone
Roof they fly; flock of black wings
And pirate bones. Arrrrh!

Long-tailed tits and starlings

 

Long-tailed tits along the lane

Tying song bows to
Broad leaf branches; overhead
Long-tailed tunes flutter

 

Bird table starlings

A squall of starlings
Blows up suddenly, raining
Beaks and talons now

A Bright Balance of Feathers

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I'm delighted to announce a new edition of these haiku is now for sale as a Kindle ebook on Amazon. Click on the image below or follow the preview links in the margin. 

Long-tailed Tits

In between the trees

Bright baubles string out mid-air

Birds light up the dusk

The Chattering Hedge

All cosy, couched in

Hawthorn and elderberries
Sparrows nattering