Birdtober 2025: All the Poems

Day 1: Banded Penguin (African Penguin)

Day 2: Venezuelan Troupial 

Day 3: Boreal Chickadee

Day 4: Wyandotte Chicken 

Day 5: Javan Green Magpie 

Day 6: Green Pigeon 

Day 7: Common Loon 

Day 8: Diamond Firetail Finch 

Day 9: White-crested Helmetshrike 

Day 10: Kalij Pheasant 

Day 11: Arctic Tern 

Day 12: Gyrfalcon 

Day 13: Gray/Grey Heron 

Day 14: Costa's Hummingbird 

Day 15: Ringed Kingfisher 

Day 16: Pygmy Nuthatch 

Day 17: Great Gray/Grey Owl

Day 18: Crowned Parrot 

Day 19: Red-footed Booby 

Day 20: Golden Plover 

Day 21: Eurasian Tree Sparrow 

Day 22: Tree Swallow 

Day 23: Northern Waterthrush 

Day 24: Olive Warbler 

Day 25: Acorn Woodpecker 

Day 26: Pacific Wren 

Day 27: California Condor 

Day 28: Sultan Tit 

Day 29: Varied Bunting 

Day 30: Gallirex 

Day 31: Artist's Choice (Bat Hawk) 

 

 

 

Poetry Friday: Birdtober Day 31: Artist's Choice

 

There's only one Artist's Choice in the whole month of Birdtober, so it's hard to pick the bird to write about (this is supposed to be a series of prompts for visual artists, but this is the fifth year I've been using them for writing instead). This month I had four lifers, plus I saw the Shoebill for the second time (here's what I wrote the first time). But I had to choose my most special lifer of the month for today's post: the Bat Hawk.

 

 

Our friends invited us over 

to see a bird they had in their backyard.

We ate first,

yummy beans and posho on the porch,

with the baby hollering companionably 

in her high chair.

After dinner we headed out back,

four adults and four kids 

armed with binoculars

and a flashlight to illuminate the branches.

There aren't lots of these birds anywhere,

and certainly not in the city,

but there they were, swooping at bats

as night came.

Our crepuscular visitors

rounded out our evening splendidly:

dinner and birds. 

Not just any birds, either.

Bat Hawks, 

#610 on my life list!  

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Here are links to all my Birdtober posts this year. Jone is our Poetry Friday host this week.

Birdtober Day 30: Gallirex

 

Gallirex is not a species, it's a genus containing two species, the birds in the videos above: the Rwenzori Turaco and the Purple-crested Turaco. I haven't seen either of these, but we do have turacos where I live; here's a post I wrote about one of them.

 

Wild and wonderful coloration

Fills the beautiful Gallirex nation

Birds like paint chips thrown at random

Turacos building up a fandom!

Filling trees with bright delight

Then spreading wings in gorgeous flight. 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Birdtober Day 29: Varied Bunting

 

Varied bunting

Insect hunting

Desert sings

Colored wings

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Birdtober Day 28: Sultan Tit

 

Sultan with a crown of yellow

Eating bugs, a regal fellow,

Foraging in East Asian trees

He's the king of all he sees.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 27: California Condor

 

Here's your dinner, precious chicky:

Not even a little icky.

I'm flying in from high above

To vomit up my gift of love.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Birdtober Day 26: Pacific Wren

 

Tiny brown ball of birdness

living in lush green forestness

with a little tail sticking up

and a song that's full of springness

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Birdtober Day 25: Acorn Woodpecker

 

Acorn Woodpeckers

are misers guarding their wealth

homemakers storing up food for the winter

hoarders saving thousands of acorns even though they mostly eat bugs

 

Acorn Woodpeckers

are cooperative family members

destroyers of siding on people's houses

noisy groups of cartoon characters who sound like Woody

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Poetry Friday: Birdtober Day 24: Olive Warbler

 

Before we meet the Olive Warbler, here are links to this week's Birdtober birds:

 

 

Saturday: Crowned Parrot 

Sunday: Red-footed Booby 

Monday: Golden Plover 

Tuesday: Eurasian Tree Sparrow 

Wednesday: Tree Swallow 

Thursday: Northern Waterthrush 

 

 

Today's bird, the Olive Warbler, lives in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Central America. There is a little bit of olive green on the wings, but olive certainly isn't the main color of these birds: the male is more orange and the female more yellow.

 

 

Hopping on branches

in the ponderosa pines

the Olive Warbler isn't concerned

that it's neither olive nor a warbler.  

It's more interested in finding

a crunchy, delicious bug to eat.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Patricia has today's roundup. 

Birdtober Day 23: Northern Waterthrush

 

Northern Waterthrush

Spends winter in the mangroves

Summer in the swamp

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Birdtober Day 22: Tree Swallow

 

 

 

 

Tree Swallow flocking fills the sky,

Tornadoes of birds careen on by.

Shiny birds of bluish green:

 The best tornado ever seen.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Birdtober Day 21: Eurasian Tree Sparrow

 

Here's my post about the House Sparrow. In the video you can see that it's very much like the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, and you can also learn how to tell them apart. One of the things I love about birding is that there are people who care about these tiny details; it matters to them which kind of sparrow they are seeing. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow, like the House Sparrow, was introduced into the United States. All the Eurasian Tree Sparrows in the US are descended from twelve individuals who were brought over in 1870 from Germany so that immigrants would have familiar species around them. They are found all over Europe and much of Asia, but only in a very small part of the United States. (The video is from the UK.) 

 

 

 

Neat bird of brown and black and white,

House Sparrow's country cousin.

The ones that live in Iowa

Descended from a dozen. 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

Birdtober Day 20: Golden Plover

The American Golden-Plover travels about 25,000 miles during migration. 

 

 

Black and white with flecks of gold,

Plumage beautiful and bold 

Journeys through places hot and cold

Leaves the travel tales untold

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 19: Red-footed Booby

According to eBird this species is "not seen from the mainland." The birds breed on tropical islands and then spend the rest of their time at sea. It's easy to see why they named them after their feet - they are spectacular - but that bill is also quite something! I decided to write about booby species in general rather than the Red-footed specifically.

 

 

Red-foot, Blue-foot,

Lots of boobies.

Ocean birds

Friendly to newbies.

Peruvian, Nazca,

Masked and Brown

Fly over water,

Love to clown. 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Here's my post about the Blue-footed Booby. 

Birdtober Day 18: Crowned Parrot

 

 

A Crowned Parrot isn't a single species; when I searched on eBird I found several different crowned parrots and crowned Amazons. I picked the White-crowned Parrot to write about because it's just so beautiful and brightly-colored. You can see lots of the colors in the video, but also check out the photos here on eBird. This bird lives in Central America; the video was taken in Guatemala. The scientific name is Pionus senilis. The second part refers to the white head, connected with old age and senility.

 

 

Dark brown, brownish-pink, yellowish

Crown of white

Green, dark blue, purplish-blue, light blue

Crown of white

Reddish-brown, green, yellowish-brown

Crown of white

Violet blue, green, reddish-brown 

Crown of white

Brighter green, red

Crown of white

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Poetry Friday: Birdtober Day 17: Great Grey Owl

 

Here are this week's posts:

Saturday: Arctic Tern 

Sunday: Gyrfalcon 

Monday: Gray/Grey Heron 

Tuesday: Costa's Hummingbird 

Wednesday: Ringed Kingfisher 

Thursday: Pygmy Nuthatch 

 

 

 

Sees prey through yellow eyes

Then,

Silent as smoke,

Attacks

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Sarah Grace has today's Poetry Friday roundup. 

Birdtober Day 16: Pygmy Nuthatch

I have three nuthatch species on my life list: White-breasted, Brown-headed, and Red-breasted. Not the Pygmy, though. It's found in the western half of North America, usually in coniferous forests. According to All About Birds, "Pygmy Nuthatches cache seeds year-round by hammering them into crevices or under flakes of bark on the tree, saving them for later.  . . . Sometimes more than 150 individuals sleep in a single tree, stacked up in squares, triangles, diamonds, oblongs, or tiers of birds."

 

Life among pine cones

Storing seeds to eat later 

Sleeping in a pile

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Birdtober Day 15: Ringed Kingfisher

 

I love this video because it is such a specific sighting, not a collection of various photos from who knows where. We can see the effects of the wind on this bird as it sits on a branch. We can hear the wind. And at the end the videographer pulls back to show us the larger context.

 

I have seen this bird; it's on eight of my checklists, all from Paraguay. When I think of this bird, I recall standing on a particular bridge with my brother as he identified it for me. I can feel the heft of my binoculars around my neck and the heat of the Asunción evening. There are no generic birds and no generic sightings. 

 

 

 

Megaceryle torquata 

with your rattling sound

and your burrow home,

how glad I am to see you

on this one unrepeatable evening

in my life that is short

and yours that is even shorter.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Reading Update

Book #82 of 2025 was Maine Characters, by Hannah Orenstein. Summary: nobody in this book had a life that turned out the way they wanted, but in the end they worked it out. 

 

Book #83 was a book club pick, The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau, by Kristin Harmel. This one was the third Harmel title we've read together. Colette Marceau is a jewel thief, which gave a new wrinkle to the Holocaust themes Harmel has explored before. 

 

Book #84 was my first Tana French book, the fifth book in a series. I chose The Secret Place because it was available from the library app without waiting, and as soon as I had read it, I checked out the first in the series, In the Woods, which became book #86 of the year.

 

Book #85 was The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. I loved some parts of this book, but I thought it was a bit uneven. I found some revelations to be quite unbelievable. 

 

Book #87 was Married to Bhutan: How One Woman Got Lost, Said 'I Do,' and Found Bliss, by Linda Leaming. This was a fascinating memoir about an American woman's experiences in Bhutan. Here's her website.

Birdtober Day 14: Costa's Hummingbird

 

I've written quite a bit about hummingbirds in the past; here's one post from Birdtober in 2022. I've never seen this one and I sure would love to. Look at that bright purple iridescent throat! This species lives in the desert in the western United States. I looked into who Costa was, and it turns out that this hummingbird was named after a French nobleman by an ornithologist friend of his. Kind of a nice gift, I guess. With the eponymous bird names due to be changed soon, I spent some time wondering about what kind of name could be chosen for Costa's. Amethyst is already taken -- there are several hummingbirds with that purple gem as part of their names. I thought of royalty being related to purple, but there's already at least one hummingbird species with royal in its name, in addition to an empress. I didn't find any kings or queens, so those are some possibilities. Several descriptions compare the Costa's purple throat to a mustache, so how about the Violet Mustache as its new name?  And Louis Marie Pantaléon Costa, Marquis de Beauregard himself, the source of the Costa name, had a pretty impressive mustache.  Some sources that have been suggested for the new names are the bird's behavior (and there's a lot of overlap in behavior among different species)  and the indigenous names. The bird's habitat could also be a source, and this one is described in a couple of places as the only true desert hummingbird. So how about Desert Gem? The name Costa won't be lost, no matter what new name is chosen, because it's part of the bird's scientific name, Calypte costae. (Take a look at this list of hummingbird names to give you an idea of how much variety there is, and here's an article about some of the issues involved in bird names.) 

 

 

 

What shall we name you, little bird?
Do you prefer being named after a French nobleman,
a precious stone,
your physical appearance
(stunning, if I may say so)?
Would you like us to describe your behavior
or your surroundings?

I’m guessing, little bird,
that you don’t care at all what we call you.
You’re too busy living your best hummingbird life.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

Birdtober Day 13: Gray/Grey Heron

 

 

I've written a lot about herons in the past; here's one post and it contains a link to others. Herons are so beautiful to watch, and the Gray Heron (Grey is the British spelling) is one of the most common ones we get here in Uganda. The scientific name of this heron is Ardea cinerea, meaning ash-colo(u)red heron.

 

My husband and I went camping by Lake Victoria on Saturday night and I took this picture on Sunday morning. You can see the mixture of mist with the smoke from our campfire. As I thought about the ash and the Gray/Grey Heron, this poem came to be:

 

 

Smoke rises
from the campfire,
Mist rises
from the lake,
Grey Heron rises,
the S of her neck 
writing serenity
across Sunday morning

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Birdtober Day 12: Gyrfalcon

 

This is an amazing bird, the largest falcon in the world. It's pronounced JER-falcon. 

 

 

Gyrfalcon lives in northern cold:

A hunting bird since times of old,

Providing meat for baby gyrs

Or catching prey for falconers.

Snowy, silver, black or brown,

An awesome sight when swooping down.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 11: Arctic Tern

 

Two summers a year

The Arctic Tern seeks the light

Record migration 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

Poetry Friday: Birdtober Day 10: Kalij Pheasant

 

I'm enjoying doing Birdtober for the fifth time. Andrea Holmes puts out these prompts every year for visual artists, but I use them to learn about birds and write poems every day of October. I always find that my busy days are more fun when I'm doing some tiny little creative thing like this.

 

Here are this week's Birdtober posts:

 

Saturday: Wyandotte Chicken 

Sunday: Javan Green Magpie 

Monday: Green Pigeon 

Tuesday: Common Loon 

Wednesday: Diamond Firetail Finch 

Thursday: White-crested Helmetshrike 

 

Today's bird, the Kalij Pheasant, is found in the Himalayas and has also been introduced to Hawaii. And apparently, it lives in constant fear. (See the video.)

 

 

(Summary of the video in case you don't have four minutes for it: the first minute shows Paras getting up in the morning, getting his coffee, and sitting down at his desk. Then he explains that he'll be talking about the Kalij Pheasant, the "Big Boss," who is an "escape artist." He gives more information about the habitat and behavior of this bird. And then he shows details of the kind of danger they face from humans and why they'd feel the need to escape as fast as possible.)

 

Kalij Pheasant, run away!

You're in danger if you stay.

Lovely Himalayan pheasant,

I wish your life could be more pleasant.

 

@Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

(I wrote about another pheasant species here.)

 

Linda is hosting Poetry Friday this week. 

Birdtober Day 9: White-crested Helmetshrike

I haven't seen this bird, which eBird describes as "cartoon-like," but I do live in its range, so the possibility exists! How fun would that be? I typed into Google, "Where can I see the White-crested Helmetshrike in Uganda?" and the AI responded that there have been no sightings in Uganda, but that is not true. Here's a better response from an actual human being.

 

 

There’s one thing I would really like:
To see White-crested Helmetshrike
To look in their startling yellow eyes
To say, “It’s nice to meet you guys.
I’m glad our acquaintance is now official
in spite of intelligence that’s artificial.”

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

 

Birdtober Day 8: Diamond Firetail Finch

 

I've written about quite a few different dramatic-looking finches here in the past: the Zebra Finch in 2022, the Saffron Finch that same year, the Strawberry Finch in 2023, and the Red-billed Firefinch last year. In the US, House Finches are so very common that it's hard to imagine this array of finch diversity. 

 

I would love to see these in the wild (they live in Australia), but they can also be seen in cages, like a couple of the birds we've already met this Birdtober. I read that they fly in long lines, with their bright red rumps very visible. 

 

Row of burning coals,
of bright, glittering diamonds, 
little birds in flight

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Birdtober Day 7: Common Loon

The Common Loon is the ABA Bird of the Year for 2025, and I wrote about it here, along with a poem by Miller Oberman. I've never seen a Common Loon but I very much want to. 

 

Chessboard of a bird,
Haberdashery model of stripes and polka dots,
Red eyes:
Diving 200 feet down in the lake,
Flying at 75 miles an hour,
Wailing through the winter night.

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

Birdtober Day 6: Green Pigeon

I wrote about the African Green-Pigeon last year during Birdtober, so this year I decided to learn more about the larger family of Green Pigeons. There are thirty species of them across Africa and Asia. I enjoyed looking at many photos of different varieties.  The video below shows one of them. They are green because of carotenoids in their fruit diet. I wondered whether humans could turn green from eating carotenoids but found that occasionally people turn orange when they overconsume. But don't stop eating them, because carotenoids are antioxidants, great for your eyes, your heart, and even cancer prevention.

 

 

The genus Treron, to which Green Pigeons belong (some species have a hyphen and some don't), was first introduced by French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot, who lived in Haiti during the 1770s and 1780s. He worked in his brother's spice business and fled to the US during the Haitian revolution. He lost one of his daughters to Yellow Fever. I read the novel Fever 1793 with one of my middle school classes during Covid, and we were interested to learn that the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia was blamed on the refugees from Haiti. It was easy to draw parallels with anti-Asian sentiment during Covid. All subjects do eventually lead back to Haiti with me, as you may have noticed.

 

You are what you eat, Green Pigeon
Carotenoids and all
But don’t hold back a smidgeon:
Fruit makes you beautiful.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Birdtober Day 5: Javan Green Magpie

 

When I first started Birdtober this year, I'd never even heard of the Javan Green Magpie, but within moments of beginning to research for my poem, I learned that there may be only about 50 of them left in the wild. So no sooner did I learn that they exist than I had to mourn that they are almost gone. Because of their dramatic appearance, they are popular as caged birds, so they have been captured into near-extinction. Some people think they may already be extinct in the wild. eBird doesn't even have a photo. 

 

Then I discovered that Chester Zoo, in England, is part of a program working on breeding them with a goal of returning them to the wild. Watch the video below for more details!

 

 

Once their romances
played out in tea gardens in Java,
but now their privacy is over
as zookeepers try to encourage them to mate.
Bright green feathers and orange bills
in an enclosure in Chester,
and then a squirming, naked baby bird.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

If you're as interested as I am, watch this video from Chester Zoo! I've seen several of the birds in this video in the wild, which makes me feel extremely privileged. While in a sense these birds are in captivity just as much as the ones kept in cages in people's homes, at least they are in habitats with lots of room and they are cared for by experts. And let's hope some day they can all be plentiful in the wild again.

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 4: Wyandotte Chicken

I love that today's prompt is a chicken. The first prompt for 2022 was a rooster, and I waxed eloquent about how ubiquitous and beautiful these domestic birds are, even though we can't list them on eBird (wild birds only, please). 

 

 

Black and white with other hues - 

Gold, silver, sometimes even blue.

If you like eggs and you eat lots

Get yourself some Wyandottes!

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

Poetry Friday: Birdtober Day 3: Boreal Chickadee

 

Shy bird

Mountain dweller

Boreal Chickadee

Stores winter food in many trees

Prepared 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Here are the other Birdtober birds so far: 

Day 1: Banded Penguin (African Penguin) 

Day 2: Venezuelan Troupial (SJT prompt: Compassion) 

 

 

Matt is hosting Poetry Friday today. 

Birdtober Day 2: Venezuelan Troupial and SJT: Compassion

I wondered how I could combine the Birdtober prompt, the Venezuelan Troupial, with the Spiritual Journey Thursday prompt, Compassion. Read on to see how I did it.

 Photo Source: eBird.com

 

The Venezuelan Troupial 


As I read about the Venezuelan crisis -
collapsed economy
hunger
millions in exile - 
I’m overwhelmed with the sadness and loss

As I read about the Venezuelan Troupial, though,
the national bird,
and look at its cheerful orange feathers
and the blue teardrops around its eyes - 
I’m overwhelmed with its beauty.

When refugees leave behind everything
they might not think of the birds in their country,
their biodiverse home,
until, far away,
they listen to the sound 
of the Venezuelan Troupial on YouTube
and read on eBird that its conservation status is
“Of Least Concern.”

And they might be glad that there’s one thing
they don’t have to worry about. 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Some links I looked at: Wikipedia on the Venezuelan Troupial, Birds of the World on the Venezuelan Troupial, Venezuelan biodiversity, Why wildlife is at risk in Venezuela, FAQs on the Venezuelan crisis, eBird on the Venezuelan Troupial

 

Kim is hosting the SJT roundup this month. 

Birdtober Day 1: Banded Penguin

 

There are four living species of Banded Penguins, and one of them is the African Penguin. Someday I want to go to Capetown to see them, and since they are critically endangered, I hope it will be soon. I wrote a found haiku using words from the eBird description here.

 

African Penguin

supreme swimmer, black and white,

pudgy braying bird 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey