in bramble havens
the fierce stares of blackbirds curse
blackberry brigands
The brambles on the moors are already heaving with fruit. I’m not that fussed about blackberries though, the pips always get stuck in my teeth. The blackbirds are welcome to them all.
birds decorate the
walls of the rowan cottage
welcome the new guests
Got a limited ed’ print from my great friend Bossman, very grateful for the gift, haven’t seen him or his family in ages. It’s wonderful. It’s now added to our collection of bird related art all over our house! it’s by Cole Gerst, simply called Blackbirds.
blackbird tugs and pulls
at rowan berry bunches
sun ripened, rain fed
D took this photo in our cottage garden, we’ve got two rowans providing shade from the evening sun. It’s a lovely sheltered spot our decking at the end of the garden as they provide a bit of a wind break too.
fanned flat for ant bath
squadrons pour out and crawl clean
drones and new born queens
I saw a blackbird lying flat against the floor, nervously darting glances this way and that. I thought it had been hit by a car, its wings looked broken. I asked D for her opinion, she suggested it might be “anting”, that is, lying near an ants nest, letting them crawl over him to spray formic acid over his wings. It’s like a disinfectant for them, cleansing them of mites, bacteria and such.
Indeed it flew off shortly after, so indeed he was uninjured. She’s very clever knowing all this nature stuff!
It was hot and the ants were flying. This sudden exodus used to fascinate me as a small boy in my parents garden. The big queens and the more slender drones, flying off, mating. The drones would die and the queens would scrape off their wings and perhaps be lucky enough to found their own colony.
It was alien and fascinating to me. I wonder where I’d be in life if I did follow my dream to study entomology? Probably very poor!
Blackbird distracted
Goldfinch singing, steals his perch
king for a moment
The blackbird owns this tree. He disappeared for a bit and the Goldfinch moved in. Their songs are so delicate. Although I love blackbird song, it was nice to get a new record on the jukebox.
Blackbirds duel at dusk,
Songs soaked in battleship grey,
Echoes bounce off steel.
Most of my Haikus seem to be about birds. That’s because birds are awesome. Tonight, I left work around 6.30, it was pretty much dark. The car park was quiet apart from two blackbirds having a sing off. I could see one of them quite clearly, taking the high point in the photo above. The little spot on top of the tower.
The complexity of a blackbird song is impressive, trills and tuneful whistles, no two compositions the same. One would start, then the other would reply. It was loud. This is the the time of year when territory is all important. Spring is pretty much here. Time to find a mate and nest. The two combatants were fighting it out for the large but spartan landscape of our work car park in Stevenage. For what little foliage there is.
