A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'G' - Goldfinch

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

G – Goldfinch, Goldcrest, Geranium, Grass, Greenhouse

Beautiful birds take pride of place today; it’s no coincidence that ‘charm’ is a collective name for these:

Goldfinches

 There could not be a more apt poem for them than this:

Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop

From low hung branches; little space they stop;

But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek;

Then off at once, as in a wanton freak:

Perhaps, to show their black and golden wings,

Pausing upon their yellow flutterings

Britain’s smallest bird gets in on the act in the same conifer tree

Listen, what’s that “Si-Si-Si”?
Call of a tiny bird.

Goldcrest

A little bird, so beautiful,
that seldom seems to rest.

Geraniums are attractive annual plants at home in beds or tubs.

Geraniums

When we first moved in we could even cultivate plants like these inside -

The Greenhouse

 Until it became too fragile to survive; the space where it used to be was soon occupied by those foxgloves which appeared yesterday ( – see ‘F.’)

At least when we have been away we don’t find that tubs get as badly out of control as the lawn.

Grass

This fellow is a lot easier to spot in ornamental grass,

Grasshopper

 But Gem is quite content to sit under a tree and watch the world go by.

Gem

Poems:

• Goldfinch – John Keats – from I Stood Tip-toe
• The Goldcrest – Brian J Muchmore

Photo attribution:

• Grasshopper – By Alvesgaspar; featured picture on Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0