Tag Archives: birds

Trilling

Click on any photo to enlarge all.  jdbphotos

Trilling 

Don’t you hear the mockingbird
trilling out the whole absurd
story of the passing year,
giving voice to shock and fear?

Listen to the mourning dove,
warning us from far above,
the starlings, wrens and birds of prey.
Our debts all nature has to pay.

How can it be that those in power
sit and ponder and yet cower,
too intent on their own needs
to enact necessary deeds

to bring a tyrant fool to task—
to do what all the sane men ask?
Shame on these godly well-heeled men
who fold their hands and say amen,

but let sick children go untreated,
tenements to go unheated,
our waterways to be polluted,
laws and edicts instituted

that benefit the filthy rich
to raise themselves another niche

while milling masses unenlightened
vote heedless as their belts are tightened,

favoring the autocrats
in fear of what the democrats
“might” do, when all around them all
democracy proceeds to fall.

Hear  her there, up on the limb,
surveying all who follow him?
Simple nature mocking us?
Laughing at our furious fuss?

Perhaps more knowing than we know
when raging fires and piles of snow
assault us, it is nature’s way
to lead us and to have its say.

We cannot think of only our
needs and exercise our power
for special interests without paying.
This is what all of nature’s saying.

Mudslides, hurricanes and drought
may show us what it’s all about.
Balance, sanity and sharing
fairness, ecology and caring

will bring about a world that’s lasting
beyond our legislature’s casting.
God-fearing men, do you care
about how your children fare?

And as those whom we’ve elected,
oh so naïvely selected
pad their pockets and close their eyes,
our world around us swiftly dies.

Those are the truths clearly absurd
told to us by the mockingbird.
He sits above on swaying limb.
Why are the masses deaf to him?

The prompt today is trill.

Boat Ride through the Mangroves

Yesterday my friends Lach, Becky and I took a late afternoon boat ride through the beautiful mangrove forest ecological preserve in La Manzanilla, Mexico to view dozens of bird species as well as the iguanas and crocodiles. ( Click on any photo to enlarge them all:)

This certainly qualified as entertainment!

The Magical Kingdom of Candelabra Island

When we sailed through the colossal bifucated stone split into the secret cove on Candelabra Island in Peru, we could not help but feel like we were intruders in this little paradise filled with thousands of cormorants, blue-footed boobies, pelicans, seals, crabs, terns, seagulls, pelicans and other huge flocks of birds that settled on the jagged rocks around the quayside structure where tons of bird guano was loaded up and sold to a lucrative market every 5 years. The birds, however, watched seemingly unperturbed from their vantage point high above on the jagged rocks. (The italicized words are the prompt words we were given to choose between.  This photo series seems to demonstrate them all.)

Cllick on first photo to enlarge all.

 

 

https://bopaula.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/thursdays-special-pick-a-word-in-september-y2/

Pelicans

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Pelicans

They float upon the gentle swells,
with chins tucked in politely.
Of all the birds, most dignified,
their movements never sprightly.

They look like grumpy butlers
named Oliver or Jeeves
in morning coats of softest gray
with wings tucked in their sleeves.

They may be only scouting
the source of their next meal,
for soon they take off to the air
with energy and zeal.

And soon they’re diving down again,
straight like an arrow shot,
down into the shallows
to see what can be caught.

Bobbing once again,
they lift their bills and then let slide
all that’s in their pouches
to another place inside.

I wonder if the fishes flop
all the long way down,
and this is why the pelicans
then fold their arms and frown?

 Version 2

The prompt today is shallow. This poem is a rewrite of a poem published a few years ago..

Bird of the Week!!!

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This fella sitting on rebar rising up from the lot next to my friend’s house was huge.  Is it a Kingfisher?  Closest I can come to identifying it.

For Nancy’s A Photo a Week Bird Challenge.

Bad Photos of Mama and Papa Wren

I was finally was able to capture these photos of papa..but no time to focus.  Can you see the jet that just happened to stream by as I was snapping the one shot? Sorry about the poor photos, but I’m hoping someone will tell me if I’m right in identifying them as wrens:

(Click any photo to enlarge all.)

 

To read the poem “Kitchen Nativity” about this bird, his mate and nestlings, go HERE.

Kitchen Nativity

Version 2jdbphoto                                

Kitchen Nativity

I crept into my kitchen to see
what caused this morning’s cacophony.
The high corner of the cupboard wall
seemed to be the source of all
the peepings and it’s then I guessed
a mother bird had made a nest
there above the kitchen ceiling,
where I thought the paint was peeling.
Instead, that white spilled down the wall
outside the kitchen is not at all
what I thought—salitre’s heavings,
but is instead the nestlings’ leavings.

The watching mother stays aloof
on the next-door neighbor’s roof
with mouth filled with a juicy grub.
Now she flies from roof to shrub,
objecting to my presence there,
so close to nestlings in her care.
And so I leave the bird’s domain,
lest nestlings’ voices be raised in vain.
Minutes later, all is still,
although I know ten minutes will
bring more protests from tiny beaks
for wormy treats that mama seeks.
So it is this year again
that Mother Nature invites guests in.
My house now shelters more than me—
my family stretched from “I” to “we.”

Cee’s “Anything that Flies” Addendum

Tried to get this posted with my earlier submission for this prompt, but it took too long to load and I had to leave as my friend came by to pick me up for a trip to Guadalajara. I’ll try again as this is an amazing shot of a feeding frenzy of birds in La Manzanilla, taken last year. Here goes for another try:

Here is my original posting for the “Anything that Flies” prompt: 

https://judydykstrabrown.com/2017/06/04/what-goes-up-cees-anything-that-flies-black-and-white-photo-challenge/

And here is Cee’s prompt page if you’d like to see other people’s postings for the prompt or to post your own: 

https://ceenphotography.com/2017/06/01/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-anything-that-flies/

Sideways glance: For Cee’s View from the Side Challenge

Click on first photo to see a larger view of all photos.

For Cee’s View from the Side Challenge

What Is of Value

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What Is of Value

Now that the grass is freshly mown,
the sparrows can’t leave it alone.
Though we prefer the lovely green,
they prefer what’s gone unseen.
The dry grass underneath is best
for weaving into this year’s nest.
What has value for you and me
is not the same for all, you see.
For the way the world’s devised
is that everything is prized.

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to compose a poem out of overheard conversations, but since I’ve been in a solitary mood lately, I went down to eavesdrop on the birds and other sounds of nature. Hearing a loud chirping in the huge cactus near my hammock, I noticed birds making repeated trips to the planter full of grass I put near the pool so my Scottie dog Morrie could have a place to lie to drop his tennis ball into the pool for me to retrieve and throw back down into the garden for him to chase after.  The long grass was pretty, but constantly being torn off by his repeated jumps up to and down from the planter and making  a mess in the pool, so I’d had the gardener trim the grass.  Earlier, I’d noted how ugly it now was as the grass underneath had turned brown, but upon closer observation, I realized that it was now a treasure trove for birds building nests.

NaPoWriMo, Day 21.