SATELLITE AND BIRD

NIMBLING

WAGTAIL GREY

'Cilla' the Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) (Author's photo)

I don't know who
Was more excited.

Me? Grabbing the camera
On the wrong settings,
Flustering a few shots
Steaming the glass
Between us
With breath half-held in hush
For fear of you fleeing
Without trace.

Or you, wagtail?
Cinder ashen
Bumper rump a-bob
Lemon patched
Like nicotine
On pale knuckles
Nervy restless
Astonished
Astraddle
Puddle
Where the ice blade
Cruel edge
Of January
In this moment melted
To mirror
Your twitch and startle.
The same chill cut-throat
Drove you
Pittering to my patio
From waterway
And ringing river
Into the now
Of my scattering seed
My staggering standstill.

DROOPER & THE DRONE

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM  from Pexels

Drooper portrait by Joyce Barrass

You might know me as Drooper, from that lass with seed she shares,
She has that little box that takes my photo unawares.
I used to be an egg, you know, dragged up in a messy nest.
I have a wonky wingtip, though I always fly my best.

Now, sometimes when my mates and I are zooming thataway,

I see these massive metal birds soar into DSA.*

I went to watch the other day, and saw them come to ground

All flashing lights and landing gear and blimey! What a sound!

But just as I was leaving to fly back home for seed,

This little bird came buzzing by, which I really didn’t need.

He didn’t seem too bothered about resting in a tree,

I called “Do Two Coos, Taffy!” but he didn’t answer me!

Then on the ground all hell broke loose with humans everywhere,

Army, police and passengers all pointing in the air.

“Another blummin' drone!” they cried, and fetched their guns and shields,

I got a zap off something, had me flying for the fields!

The little bird’s oblivious, though he seemed in quite a spin,

I thought I’d hang around and help the little chap to win.

So from a height I aimed at them, and dropped some limey poops

“Make your escape!” I tweeted him, “while I decoy the troops!”

They had me on the radar, they had me in their sights.

Could hardly get my bearings with the lasers and the lights!

They soon forgot about me, once my little mate was gone.

The runway soon reopened and I flew triumphant home.

Now I steer clear of the airport, it’s the garden life I choose.

The drone-bird never did get caught, but he made the evening news!

*Doncaster-Sheffield Airport aka Robin Hood Airport on the site of the old Finningley RAF military aerodrome in South Yorkshire, about 15 miles northeast of my garden as the Wood Pigeon flies.

WINGS FROM SILENCE

Leucistic Blackbird scuttleflusters 

Slantwise into hidey hedge

Wondering unhumble at its own

Soul-sweet difference

Sevenly splendid Ladybird

Beacons its unhidden

Abacus wings from silence

As suddenly as Spring

Both are beauty

Glory enfolds them both

A BLACKBIRD IN THE HAND

One of the male Blackbirds (Turdus merula) regularly hops inside the conservatory to check I haven't dropped any mealworms on the carpet. I usually have and he knows this. Sometimes he even leaves me a little "present" as a thankyou!

This week he got a bit more adventurous. Once inside, while I was in the kitchen with the door closed between us, he became so entranced by the view of the outside from inside, he forgot how to get back to ordinary life through the wide open back door.

After capturing his extraordinary adventure on camera, I managed to calm him down after his sporadic attempts to fly back through the picture windows to the garden beyond. I gently wrapped him in a handy pillowcase to stop him flapping his wings or panicking and carried him out to his more familiar place on the patio. He flew off gratefully.

He'll be dining out on that story for years! The other Blackbirds will be so envious!

Later that day, I was outside dead-heading the chives when I noticed there was only one Blackbird bold enough to come close to me to eat the mealworms I always scatter for my garden friends.

Guess who? I think he's read the memo that there are some humans who only want the very best for you and that some glass cages have invisible hidden keys and featherless janitors who set you free to feel again the sunshine on your wings.

MAD ABOUT MAGPIES, CRAZY ABOUT CORVIDS!

Corvid controversy.

That's a given if you're a fan of these amazing birds!

I can guarantee that whenever I post a photo of a Magpie (Pica pica) on social media, there are going to be polarized reactions. Some, like me, adore them. Others get hot under the collar just seeing them. Like Marmite, the Magpie knows no middle ground. Rather than click "share" with a Magpie pic, I might as well throw a tea party for a bunch of Brexiteers and Remoaners and expect balanced adult debate!

I love corvids. Magpies make my heart jump for joy.

There. I've said it. Feels as bold a statement as standing up in a room of strangers to admit I've never watched Star Wars all the way through!

"But they eat birds! Little chicks!" someone will comment, as if I didn't know.

"They destroyed all *my* Wren's eggs in the nest three years on the trot!" someone else adds, whipping up the outrage till everybody has a Magpie Murder Casefile episode to share.

My own garden's no stranger to Magpie mayhem. Round here, Wrens, Collared Doves and Long-tailed Tits flap themselves into a frenzy of alarm-calls to ward off what they rightly count as a threat to their nesting babies, as soon as the Magpie glides in all butter-wouldn't-melt from the Ash tree.

I've witnessed angry Blackbirds gang up to warn the world of potential predators, whistleblowing on Magpies and Carrion Crows. Once a mob of Blackbirds here ejected a Grey Squirrel, another visitor rather partial to eggs and nestlings, from the garden in Spring. They successfully froze the furry invader in terror on a branch by disorientating him with their relentless cacophany of alarm-calls as they gathered from nearby gardens and woodland to join in a wall of sound. Yet there seem to be as many people complaining on message boards about rowdy Blackbirds these days as about Cockerels crowing!

Make no mistake. I understand how Magpies use their sparky corvid brains to devise all sorts of devious ways to feed themselves and their own young. Including supplementing their diet with small and accessible bundles of protein like songbird chicks. So will other corvids, birds of prey and mammals. It's just that as Magpies thrive and move closer into our gardens and back yards, they have come under the scrutiny of human judgement.

Photos of Kestrels, Sparrowhawks or those silent assassins the Barn Owls in all their cuddly anthropomorphic glory don't seem to attract such vitriol as the Magpie. Superstition and lugubrious rhyme has done him no favours! Even if he turns up alone as a Billy-no-mates, he's accused of being "One for Sorrow"!

We all have our favourites. Our avian heroes and villains. That's human nature.

But Magpies have been on the naughty step for far too long, to my mind. Magpieism from the Anti-Magpie League is alive and well, so I find myself on the defensive on behalf of one of my feathered favourites.

After all, that's the nature of nature. That's survival. That's birding for you.

We don't have to look very far from home to spot the species who genuinely do lasting damage to songbird populations on this fragile planet with our wasteful, polluting stewardship of Earth! Magpies don't come close to rivalling us in destructive lifestyle choices! But that's enough controversy for one blog post!

I'll go on treasuring every close encounter I have with these particoloured jesters, loping across the lawn, using their wits to forge their future, yet still jumping back theatrically as if shocked by their own shadow.

I'll go on posting photos of them, too. So freedom of speech can prevail, differing opinions can be aired and everyone, from Magpie-sceptics to Magpie-philes like me, can enjoy the drama these birds bring into our lives!