Birdtober Day 30: Snow Petrel

 

I've been reading a novel partially set in Antarctica, so I was excited to meet the Snow Petrel, one of three birds that has been seen at the South Pole. They are white all over except for their black eyes and bill, and their grayish feet, so they fit right in where they live, blending in with the ice and snow. 

 

Birds of ice and snow

Born in hard, cold pebbly nests

Dancing at world's end

 

 Here are the Birdtober posts so far:

 

Day 1: Lilac-breasted Roller 

Day 2: 'I'iwi 

Day 3: Resplendent Quetzal 

Day 4: Gouldian Finch 

Day 5: Atlantic Canary 

Day 6: Paradise Tanager 

Day 7: Bee Hummingbird 

Day 8: Spectacled Owl 

Day 9: Rook 

Day 10: Crimson Rosella 

Day 11: Shoebill 

Day 12: Sharp-shinned Hawk 

Day 13: Himalayan Monal

Day 14: Victoria Crowned-Pigeon

Day 15: Long-tailed Broadbill 

Day 16: Blue-capped Cordonbleu 

Day 17: Andean Cock-of-the-Rock 

Day 18: Sunbittern 

Day 19: Blue-necked Jacamar 

Day 20: Philippine Cockatoo 

Day 21: Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise 

Day 22: Scarlet Tanager 

Day 23: Lesser Flamingo 

Day 24: Hoatzin 

Day 25: Red-and-yellow Barbet 

Day 26: Splendid Fairywren 

Day 27: Kaki/Black Stilt 

Day 28: Bearded Vulture 

Day 29: Ribbon-tailed Astrapia

 

I'll put up links to all 31 posts for next Poetry Friday. 

 

Jone is hosting Poetry Friday today. 

 

Birdtober Day 29: Ribbon-tailed Astrapia

 

Long white ribbon tail

Bright green bird of paradise

No wonder he preens

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Birdtober Day 28: Bearded Vulture

 

Rusty bearded

Bearded Vulture

Eating bones is

Their food culture

Dropping bones

From way up high 

They break when they fall

From the sky

These birds eat 

What others kill

Yet many people

Fear them still

 

 ©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 27: Kaki/Black Stilt

 

Black Stilts in New Zealand

are barely hanging on,

with stoats and weasels,

ferrets and hedgehogs,

wildcats 

all threatening their chicks. 

 

Black Stilts in New Zealand 

are top priority for protection

and they are even

eating beef hearts. 

Take it easy, 

Kakis. 

I think that you can make it after all. 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 26: Splendid Fairywren

 

In The Bird Name Book, Susan Myers quotes the ornithologist Tom Iredale writing in 1924. He called fairy-wrens "whiffs of beauty." "Whiff is descriptive of their flight across a path, as with their long tail they fly undulating and zigzagly as if wafted by a gnome-driven wind, disappearing into the thicket, leaving an impression of dainty fairyness." Whiffs? Zigzagly? Fairyness? Clearly there's something about these little birds. 

 

Words fail me, little fairywren

To describe your beauty,

Your undulating fairyness:

You really are a cutie. 

Your whiffs of blue, your fine tail too,

Your zigzagged undulating

Words fail me, little fairywren:

A beauty past relating.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 25: Red-and-yellow Barbet

 

Singing from the top of a termite mound

Red-and-yellow Barbet makes a musical sound

Brightly colored, polka-dotted

Red-and-yellow Barbet, you've been spotted! 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 24: Hoatzin

Amazon stinkbird

Orange crest, red eyes, blue face

Hissing and grunting

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 

 

 

Birdtober Day 23: Lesser Flamingo

 

When I was a child in Kenya, Lake Nakuru was known for its enormous numbers of flamingos. Today there aren't as many. The water levels rose and diluted the alkaline conditions most favorable to the algae the flamingos eat. There are still flamingos at Lake Nakuru, but they say that Lake Bogoria is the place to go for the sights that Nakuru used to be so proud of. I remember going on a field trip to Lake Nakuru when I was in second grade. We learned to make tally marks and used them to keep track of how many we saw of everything - but especially flamingos.

 

How many Malachite Kingfishers?

Two.

 

How many Egyptian Geese?

Ten.

 

How many Great White Pelicans?

Twenty.

 

How many Lesser Flamingos?

A million. 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

 Tracey is hosting Poetry Friday today.

 

Here are the Birdtober posts so far:  

 

Day 1: Lilac-breasted Roller 

Day 2: 'I'iwi 

Day 3: Resplendent Quetzal 

Day 4: Gouldian Finch 

Day 5: Atlantic Canary 

Day 6: Paradise Tanager 

Day 7: Bee Hummingbird 

Day 8: Spectacled Owl 

Day 9: Rook 

Day 10: Crimson Rosella 

Day 11: Shoebill 

Day 12: Sharp-shinned Hawk 

Day 13: Himalayan Monal

Day 14: Victoria Crowned-Pigeon

Day 15: Long-tailed Broadbill 

Day 16: Blue-capped Cordonbleu 

Day 17: Andean Cock-of-the-Rock 

Day 18: Sunbittern 

Day 19: Blue-necked Jacamar 

Day 20: Philippine Cockatoo 

Day 21: Wilson's Bird-of-Paradise 

Day 22: Scarlet Tanager 

 

 

Birdtober Day 22: Scarlet Tanager

Today's post is cheating a little, because I'm reusing something I wrote back in 2021 for October 19th, when the prompt was simply "Tanager." I picked the Scarlet Tanager.

 

 

Scarlet Tanager

In a forest in Georgia
on a Friday afternoon in July
we followed the Scarlet Tanager.

Again and again and again
we heard the bird,
always from somewhere else.

I was with some of the men in my life
(husband, son, brother)
as we chased the
bright red male Scarlet Tanager,
playing sounds with our phones.

We were on the point of giving up.
My sister-in-law was waiting for us
with my impatient nephew
and it looked as though
this quarry was not to be found,
at least not today…

And then, suddenly,
there he was:
red
red
red
just as advertised.
The most scarlet sight imaginable,
worth the search.

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

Photo Source: eBird.com