Last year we had a family of Magpies nesting in our Ash tree, right at the bottom of our garden. It was a source of of joy and amusement watching the family develop and grow. It was also ever so slightly annoying, as young Magpies are mischievous, and want to explore everything, including my flower pots. I would wake up to find compost spilling out all over the place, and plants dug up. They even damaged the washing line, pulling out the connector on the garage. Still, I enjoyed their presence, as I watched them chase each other up and down the garden wall, or land for a drink at the bird bath. Their calls were the theme tune to my life, a constant wall of sound (not the gentlest, rather dinosaurial at times). Birds often inspire my writing, and here are a few examples.
Magpie Song
You sound like a hinge
or a squeaky wheel that needs oiling
Football rattles
Maracas
A pepper mill grinding
No melody
Like the blackbird
or thrushes’ song
Your calls remind me of witches cackles
Hyenas laughing
on the savannah
No harmony
rhythm
or blues
But if I had to choose
I'd say melodies
are overrated
With your black bejewelled
eye
You have tools
Imagination
A corvid brain
Which no refrain
can surpass
Magpie Thief
My garden is like a precious jewel
that magpies would like to steal
they glide over,
landing on the
garage roof,
a sycamore branch,
pulling out roots
searching,
exploring,
beaks probing
amongst cracks and crevices
looking for a morsel
in gutters, and newly planted pots
digging up bedding
making a mess
alighting on the trellis
pecking
checking
with your fathomless eyes
shining
chattering
abrupt
scissored calls
shattering
the silence
of these four walls
feathery haiku 1.
Proud magpie stands like
a mountaineer on a peak -
beak full of spiders
feathery haiku 2.
garden of black
white and petrol green - crumbs
swirling on water
feathery haiku 3.
black and white jet dives
high speed fighter, sunlit wings -
blink and she's gone.
feathery haiku 4.
dazzling rainbow with
blue, green and purple sheen
lost Magpie feather
The Magpie and the Fox
Sniffing inquisitively
With a coat of dirty auburn
Urban fox
Trotting through a suburban
Garden
Rustling leaves
Camouflage
Rushing through the willow
On its tail not far
Behind; a Magpie!
Resolute with
Determination glittering
in its sharp
Black Eye
Harrying the fox
Angrily
Hurrying
Worrying
Chasing the nervous fox away
Across the road
No mercy or quarter shown
Driving the fox out of his
lair to roam
Incredible that a bird
Can bully a fox,
Giving him such a scare
That he runs far from his home
If I have driven you mad with poems about Magpies, take a breath...I also have one or two about other birds....
I live in the suburbs not far from a main road, and it is not uncommon to hear the deafening din of traffic alongside the diverse calls of local birdlife....
roadsweeper
and a blackbird's
full throated song
One visitor we see daily is the little brown Dunnock, a much maligned and unappreciated creature...
overlooked
little brown bird ...
Dunnock
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