Spring is here

I've just been amazed at how rapidly
the last few weeks have flown by - like
tiny little birds not like
Canadian geese
who are like the B52s
of the Avian world.
I have more bird poop
on my car recently.
Spring is here.



An email from my boyfriend. Submitted by Debby Thompson.

From the clods

i
Flocks of seagulls are flying with the rooks and starlings
white plumage makes them visible.
The grass has not grown,
would hardly hide a mouse.
The smallest bird injured by
how bitter the weather is.

ii
Sharp against the sky
four oxen draw the ancient wheeled plough
to and fro on that open ridge
like ploughing on the dome of St Paul’s:
nothing for the rooks.
Now and then a lark sings in despite of
the bitter wind shaking to pieces
agriculture generally
while the house is falling.



From Field and Farm by Richard Jefferies (Phoenix House, 1957), chapter V 'On the Farm'. Submitted by Rebecca Gethin.

Listen

And finally the storm recedes.
Insects begin to stridulate,
just a few at first -- then in their thousands
and countless exotic birds
starting to call out to one another,
their cries reverberating
as if in a giant cathedral.



Taken from episode 3 of BBC Radio 4's Noise: A Human History, written by Berni Krause. Submitted by Stevie Ronnie.

Shoreham harbour

In the harbour a single Guillemot
and two Purple Sandpipers roosting
with Turnstones on the inner wooden breakwater
and Peregrine sitting in the nest box
on the Power Station chimney.

Widewater; I searched the entire length
of the beach from the flats to the sailing club
without finding the Snow Buntings once again.

On the beach a single Rock Pipit
and twenty-four Sanderling, off shore little other 
than a few regular gulls.



From the Sussex Ornithological Society, a Recent Sightings post by Bernie, 12 Dec 2011. The post has been topped and tailed, and the word 'very' removed from line 10. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.