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

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

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

The Starlings Return

On Pomparles Bridge 

A sunset of starling flocks 

Fills the sky with wings 

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!

Christmas Holiday Haiku 2019/2020

Near Stonehenge

Still as standing stones
Sentinel of the circle
Buzzard on fence post

Near Greylake

Fields; silver flood plain
All awash with wading birds
A lake of Lapwings

Near Glastonbury

A strange shimmer runs
Fractal fields shifting. Weird sight
As starlings settle

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

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.

Starling Flocks Arriving Overhead One Evening in November

Here, now; a blanket
Of soft wings brushing the sky

Draws evening close by

The absence of sound

Their solidarity speaks

A thousand times loud

Air net. A lattice of

Beak and wing to stop falcons

From feasting on them

In the late lilac

Sky; thin ribbons of birds fly

Above the old thorn

Starlings in October

Over Brands Hatch

Fleeting forms billow

Abstracts on a big blue sky

Murmuration art

Garden Tree

Quick! The tree, safe now!

Six speckled sisters chatter
Starling fledglings fly

Starling

Lawn strutting starling

Freshly slick'd in gold and green
Garden party guest

Starlings at Rochester Airport

At the roundabout

Rowdy cameraderie

Starlings winter roost

Up on the streetlights

All in a row gathering

Starlings settle down