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.
W – Wagtail,
Wallflower, Weigela, Woodpecker, Wood Pigeon, Wren.
It seems strange to call this fellow grey, when really he is
anything but,
Grey Wagtail on dock wall at the Tees Barrage |
There is no better description of the one that has visited
our garden that that by John Clare. He obviously studied this bird.
Pied Wagtail |
Little trotty wagtail
he went in the rain,
And tittering,
tottering sideways he ne'er got straight again,
He stooped to get a
worm, and looked up to get a fly,
And then he flew away
ere his feathers they were dry.
Our village is in North Yorkshire so I was pleased to find a verse in
dialect that ended:
Folk ‘at’s tired gits
churlish
An’ starts t’ owd
World’s disorders—
Ther’d be less
quarrels if they grew
Wallflowers I’ their
borders.
Wallflowers |
The wallflowers in our border
however have set themselves; they appear every year no matter how many we pull
up.
As I could not find another ‘W’ flower
we grow I have had to make do with a shrub,
Weigela Bush (and Foxglove) |
I mentioned one species of
woodpecker under ‘L’, but the most recent visitor is the Greater Spotted
variety – a bird that moves so quickly it’s difficult to photograph. I wrote
about it separately here.
Greater Spotted Woodpecker |
But the top bird in our garden
and certainly the most numerous is this one in the sycamore tree.
Wood Pigeon |
And in the bird bath which it
thinks it owns.
Bird Bath (between Potentilla and the Rose) |
Nesting in the hedge alongside
the garden shed.
Nesting Wood Pigeon |
Despite its presence the bird
that, for its size, surprises you most with the strength of its song remains:
Jenny Wren |
Small
and pert she hops around
Hither
and thither all over the ground
Speckled
and neat her rich brown coat
Pale
eyebrow and buff coloured throat
Poems:
- Little Trotty Wagtail – John Clare
- Wallflowers – Dorothy Una Ratcliffe
- Jenny Wren – Bumpsysmum
Photos:
- Pied Wagtail – Ken Billington – CC BY-SA 3.0
- Wren – Ken Billington – CC BY-SA 3.0
3 comments:
Pied wagtails (or Polly dishwashers as they were always known by us as children)are fun birds to watch - or so I thought until one day I watched one dispose of a butterfly, first tearing off its wings. It did explain the number of odd wings we had found around the drive that week though.
Really enjoying this mix of nature and poetry, Bob.
Lovely pix again, I don't think I ever knew what wallflowers looked like before. Love bird pix. We used to get a lot of wrens in North Carolina and they would nest almost anywhere.
JO ON FOOD, MY TRAVELS AND A SCENT OF CHOCOLATE
Hi Bob .. I've loved the combination of poems and verses you've used to accompany all your ABC words ... I love seeing all the plant and wildlife ..
Cheers Hilary
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