Advice
for mice.
If Lanius excubitor
(the Great Grey Shrike)
should happen to impale you on
a big sharp spike,
it’s really nothing personal:
it just intends to rip
some chunks of flesh from off your bones
and needs a better grip.
They call the shrike the butcher bird
and butchery is harder
if you do it without any knives
and a thornbush for a larder.
Because it’s Shakespeare’s birthday (probably), a poem inspired by a Shakespeherian bird reference:
Lapwings
Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
Much Ado About Nothing, 3.ii.23-5
The winter flocks of round-winged lapwings
with their creaking, bubbling song
are sharing all the gossip gained
all summer long.
They spend the summer slyly lurking
in the tangled tussock-grass
and listening to every word
as people pass.
Birdwatchers know
the Cinnamon Owl
by its tempting aroma
and blood-chilling howl.
Indeed, with the owl
and the Aniseed Swan
the scent often lingers
after they’ve gone.
Halcyon-dalcyon
Littoral Kingfishers
hover by seashores on
flashing blue wings.
Monarchs beware of their
literal-mindedness;
given the choice they’d be
fishing for kings.
The remarkable nest of the weaver bird
is passably well known;
less famous is the mason bird
which carves a nest from stone.
The proportions can be clumsy;
there’s a tendency to schlock,
a rather Disney mixture
of the Gothic and Baroque;
some ornamental flourishes
are let down by poor technique.
But not bad for a bird holding
a chisel in its beak.
~~~~
[I did write one for yesterday, but it was purely to say I’d written one and even by Napo standards it wasn’t worth posting]
On oceanic islands
under endless sky
many birds evolve without
the ability to fly.
The Inaccessible Island Rail,
the Stephens Island Wren,
the Réunion Sacred Ibis
and St Helena Swamphen:
all flightless; nearly all extinct;
but none were stranger than
the Flightless Falcon that once lived
on an island near Japan.
It was a ruthless hunter,
and would perch upon a rock
until below there waddled past
a Flightless Pigeon flock.
It swooped down at its prey;
and if it missed it then
it walked back over to its rock
and clambered up again.