Wednesday 13 April 2016

never mind then, willow warbler

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In the dawn stillness the mist hung heavy in the valley, beading the spiders' webs that loop between all the brambles and bracken of the towpath hedge. I took my big mug of tea with condensed milk in, and walked towards the song of the willow warbler that only began singing properly yesterday.

There it was, in its favourite tree. I slowly brought the camera up; it would have been such a good picture with the rising sun right behind it.

It bounced away. Willow warblers are like that; flighty, uncooperative, ever so slightly passive aggressive- that song of theirs, beautifully melancholy though in an "I'm all right really, don't worry about me, no, no, I'll just sit here then" sort of way.

A little further on, the song thrush was greeting the sun, which perhaps makes it a brightling thrush. I managed to get a photo...

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..before it dived out of sight.

Yesterday I talked to Roger McGough on the phone. As you do. I'd put in a request to Poetry Please.... four years ago.... it was for Deborah Harvey's poem about starlings (and families) that I really rather like. Well, obviously, or I wouldn't have requested it. Judge for yourself, gentle reader.

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