Journey of Words

Tag: Birds

  • Day 41

    It wasn’t wet, nor cold. Partly sunny. I stepped out the back door. It was warmer out than in. I stepped back into the kitchen. I worked intermittently at my desk for the rest of the day, into mid-evening. I pause occasionally to watch the clever rat climb the top of the post stretch across →

  • Day 38

    I go up the lane where I first recognised a horsetail sprouting in a verge many years ago. Then so rare to my eyes and now so common. Are there more of them, or is it my awareness of them that makes them more obvious now? It was a strange plant to my eye then, →

  • on the line

    The year’s first swallow is here Just the one Balanced quite comfortably On the telephone wire A bright summery note on a four line stave Flown in on the warm south wind It sits, calling for the others It can’t eat all these midges and mosquitos alone . Christopher Perry 15th April, 2020 →

  • Day 27

    Deep sleep broken by the unfamiliar heavy rain on the window; big, fat, heavy splats. I lie awake listening to the wind in the trees, until the rough sea and rain’s rhythm ease me back to sleep. The local temperature fell by more than sixteen degrees centigrade in less than twenty four hours. From shorts →

  • Day 21

    Four things I noticed today: 1. When walking through a cloud of midges the air is so quiet, so still, that I can hear the high pitch of their tiny whining wings. A large bee goes by with its deep familiar buzz emphasising the difference in size and tempo of wing beats between the insects. →

  • April Shower

    Drops plip, spilp, patter Sparrows enlivened chitter Sweet taste of normal . CLP 06/042020 →

  • Rock Pipit

    Of all the birds in all the world My favourite bird is not at all that big It’s dull and brown Slender not round Without distinctive look   Male and female are indistinct You’d have thought one would make an effort But even so they get along And have a pleasant life They live by →

  • Day 12

    British Summer Time, the forward shift of clocks by an hour, has blown in on a gale straight off the North Sea. Hailstones are spat at the window. Some of the ice pellets stick before slipping slowly; disintegrating as they slide, leaving a tear stain on the pane. The hazel bush flexes in the gusts, →

  • Day 10

    Unclouded skies of these past five days have stimulated rapid growth of shoots. What were twiggy branches, bushes, shrubs are now thick with green. So many variations of green unfold from so many buds. Here we have more greens than words for “green.” Perhaps, like the Inuit with all their words for snow, the English →

  • Day 9

    A quiet day. Sun. Blue sky. Birdsong. On the dusty road to the shop there are the car-flattened, leathery remains of toads. They have tried to cross from water where they have grown from eggs, to tadpoles, to toadlets to toads. They spread out from their birth pools and eventually take singular paths. This road →