January 2025

Starlings


7.45 am
Iron clouds roll, I spot them!
A fleet of starlings

Stretched as thin as air
Starling flock returns to floods
From yesterday's rain

Heron and Little Egret flying past on walk

Overhead; look up!
Awkward neck crick, gangly legs
Birds and birdwatchers

Magpies, Crows and Jackdaws

Magpies in a tree
Six or seven, more maybe
Secret to be told

He feeds them. Walking
The lanes, Tor bound, beautiful
World waking up. Here

Garden Birds

In the willow twigs
Sweet garden song of robin
For the New Year now

All manner of small:
Long-tails, Chatter-spats, Dundills
Sparries, Jenny Wren

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

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

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

 

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

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!

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

The Starlings Return

On Pomparles Bridge 

A sunset of starling flocks 

Fills the sky with wings 

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

Cheddar Reservoir - Grebes, Little Stints & House Martins

 

Two grebes taking turns
To be each other’s mirror
A flattering glass!

 

Little stints wading
Almost lost on the shoreline
Now arrows in flight

 

A sky full of gnats
And the wheel & swoop of wings
House martins hunting

Winter Starlings

Up in the bare trees
A canopy of feathers
Sings about Spring soon

 

On the bird table
Freckles, speckles, sparks and dots
Starlings squabble lots!

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

Swans, Herons and Starlings

Two Swans

Wrapped in sheets of mist

Two swans sleep; waiting for snow

Winter’s white duvet

Two Herons

Mid-air pas de deux

A pair of herons dance by

Encore! Encore! More!

Two Thousand Starlings

Overhead, at dusk

Two thousand wings whispering

This way. This way home.

Seagulls after the storm

Gulls on the low field

Kite tail skips 'gainst a green sky

White triangles fly

Old sailor's sea legs

On dry land, stamping ground now

Gone earthworm fishing

Silver fields blossom

With seagulls after the storm

Garlands of gaggles

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

The Chattering Hedge

All cosy, couched in

Hawthorn and elderberries
Sparrows nattering

Blackbirds and a Red Kite

The Blackbird

The hedge brambling bird

Quietly picks a path through

Tangled branch and fruit

On finding a blackbird, unexpectedly

Bright eye catches mine

Yellow-bladed beak and claw

Daggers drawn, retreat!

Red Kite

Caught in the willows 

A call hollows out the wind

Crying solitude

Swifts and Sparrows

Swifts overhead

A glint of metal

Catches my eye, high in sky

Palette knife paints blue

Sparrow Lane

Street theatre in tree

Leaves shake with laughter, cheep! cheep!

Sparrows tell rude jokes