UNWOVEN WONDERS

BACK TO THE FLOOD

SPRING OVERNIGHT

AFTER THEIA

Earth minds her business being born

In subtle rhythms

Vibrancy of space

When blindsided by Theia blundering by

They kissed and swung

Garlanded by debris discs expanding

Rippling sunlit fragments

Back out towards the Sun

Then came those moments

Waiting in stunned still

Seeing the Moon melting out of gravity

Into mottle and pucker of sea and crater

Earth ingests her clumsy

Creative gate crasher

Deep in her core and mantle

Finds herself tilted so round her jaunty axis

New seasons strum her

Rush over her shimmering colours of bang

ASHEN

ASHEN

Noctilucent crown

Digit dither in bluest breeze

Summer spender

Of unresting still

Nithered in dusk's gown

Holding owl in finger squeeze

Winter welcomer

Quiesce to chill

Your keys hold all pendula

Hushing the clockwork,

Finger on lip of the stream;

Keys fan, fair flutterer,

Ogham misspelling

The drift and the dream

Look closer - you might be missing pure beauty

Achillea millefolium in my garden

I love all the living things in my garden, but my eye can be shamefully selective. For years I thought less than fondly of my two clumps of Achillea Millefolium. They seemed so ungainly at times. They carry their yellow cauliflower heads with the geeky flattened tops high above feathery, silver-green foliage, top heavy as a silicon-enhanced bust on a wasp waisted model. Somehow, they never quite pushed my buttons (more fool me)! I was often vexed by the way they lunged out over the lawn  like a little crowd of rubber-neckers  at the scene of a disaster, twitching the borders like nosy neighbours at net curtains. Then as summer faded, they'd be at it again, laying their oversized top-knots down on the ground, ostriches ready to stick their awkward heads in the sand.

This week I got out my mobile to take photos of some of the flowers that already make me smile. Snapped the settings to "macro" focus and away I went. I even took a photo of one of my "ugly duckling" Achilleas and wow! I confess I'd never really SEEN their intricate geometry and symmetry before. God's awe-inspiring eye for detail sang out from the images of his sunshine-faced creation. Thank goodness the Lord of life doesn't walk on by me because of my less than glamorous outer casing and uncoordinated stumblings!

"This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes!" (Psalm 118:23)

Sparrowhawks have yellow feet

Sparrowhawks have yellow feet,
The Woodpigeon’s are pink,
And one can take the other down
Quicker than it can think.
The Hawk sat under my apple tree,
Staining the white snow red,
Spreading a grey down carpet
Where her hungry beak had fed.

The Blackbird’s bill is golden,
The Dunnock's legs are red;
Their colour coded miracles
Fill winter’s empty head
With stab and thrill and beat- boxing
With dip and dodge and dance,
With scolding or with shyness,
And the seizure of each chance.

The Fieldfare, foreign-feathered,
Comes to peck the apple core,
While the Goldcrest and the Bullfinch
Show the shades that God once saw
When He finished the creation,
And stood back, enjoying all
Just the way that He’d intended
From the colour to the call.

He didn’t forget the sparrow,
Totting up its plumage count,
And remarking how the chocolate
And the coffee barbs stood out;
How the chirrup and the chatter
Sang a twitter feed of worth
From the vacuum close of chaos
To the spark that lit the earth.

JB 12th Jan 2010

RECENT GARDEN BIRD VISITS

Saw a male Pheasant feeding on my lawn yesterday morning when the temperature was about -2°. That was a first for my garden! First he looked round, lordly but nervous and walked the length of the garden away from the house, then returned to feed under the nut and seed hoppers hanging from the lilac bush. The Blackbird looked a bit affronted, but then, doesn’t he always?

The Mistle Thrush has now begun visiting the garden. In the weeks leading up to the first frost in November, he and his mate had stuck to perching briefly in the topmost twigs of the Ash tree. Even there, tension between them and the Blackbird was obvious. Six Blackbirds at that time used to chase each other round the tops of nearby trees, and this behaviour was soon extended to include harassment of the Thrushes.

Pausing for elevenses mid morning, I noticed a Mistle Thrush perched on the hedge dividing my back graden from my neighbour’s on the left. Nearby on the same stretch of hedgetop sat a desolate youngster, possibly the young Blackbird I saw a few days ago, with the feathers on his rump in disarray. He kept closing his eyes. His colour is a similar brown to the thrush, so I wonder if in fact he is a thrush and not one of the Blackbird’s brood at all. The Thrush, on that frosty morning, was seen to chase of almost every other bird, with a great show of aggression.

The Blue Tit has also been harassing the Coal Tit, trying to thwart every attempt at feeding on the suet and nuts. The Blue Tit flies to the very twig on which the Coal Tit has just alighted, and it happens too often to be put down to coincidence! The Coal Tit seems to know when the Blue Tit is busy elsewhere, and loses no opportunity of helping himself to the provisions when his bullying cousin is away! He is such an acrobat, and no angle defeats him to get what he needs to survive.

I had a visit from the female Blackcap last week, the first time I’d ever seen her in the garden. Like the superficially similar Coal Tit, she is quite reclusive. I didn’t actually see food pass her beak, though when I scoped her she was perched in the berberis by the pergola where lots of winter goodies were available.

The various local Woodpigeon are never far away, either roosting in the surrounding trees or coming to share the spoils on the lawn. One I’ve nicknamed “Old Spavin-Head” as his head and neck seem permanently wet and dishevelled! Plenty of courting is still going on, with a male bouncing along in ungainly pursuit of a less than willing female. At other times, a single Woody will graze quietly for ages under the lilac, perhaps inspired to discretion by the unobtrusive Dunnock pair who never draw attention to themselves.

The Robin blows in and out of this scenario, more often heard than seen. His sweet thin metallic song punctuates the year’s descent from autumn into the bleaker days of winter. When he does grace us with an appearance, he bounces on his elastic legs like a wind up toy, assuring himself that his kingdom is in order before flouncing out again with a dried mealworm in his bill. The Magpie, often the target of prejudice for his own bullying, is always a welcome visitor here. His beauty is stunning, pied and glossy, with his intelligent large skull and corvine character. He seems unaware that he is supposed to be the bully and pantomime villain, and instead, snatches a large chunk of food before jumping away, alarmed at his own daring!

For a week now, I haven’t seen the male Great Spotted Woodpecker at his usual perch on the lilac, in contemplation, looking around with his calm eyes for any clues where the insects might be, before pecking at the suet slab. In the Summer, he regularly visited with his mate (never both at the same time). But recently he has been on his own. Maybe he has been every day, but at times when I wasn’t looking.

The resident family of ten to fourteen House Sparrows is never far away, feeding from the pergola, gossiping in the hedge or chirruping on the clothes post, or over in the front garden, perching in the holly bush and cotoneaster along the wall. They have the bulk of the suet balls and seeds for themselves every day, ganging up to monopolise with safety in numbers, but they still insist on squabbling among themselves on every opportunity.

From time to time, I am visited by a stray Greenfinch, a Chaffinch or two, the Great Tit, a flock of Starlings, a Black Headed Gull flying high overhead, or even the Sparrowhawk who one afternoon perched for a nanosecond on the pergola, moments after the whole crowd of House Sparrows had been feeding there. No other bird was seen in the garden for the rest of the day!

Friends on the other side of the dual carriageway tell me they have regular visits from a Nuthatch from woods at the back of their house. It would be great if the one I’ve heard “Too-oit”-ing my nearby wood would come and check out my feeding stations as the going gets tougher through December!