Thursday, October 21, 2021

Birdtober Day Twenty-One: Frogmouth

 

Tawny Frogmouth

Source: eBird.com


Large Frogmouth

Source: eBird.com


While researching this bird family, which includes fourteen species, I learned that this year, some scholars of Experimental Aesthetics in Germany did a study which found that this bird is the "most Instagrammable bird" in the world (Frogmouth article on Wikipedia). That's the source of my poem. 


The Frogmouth Speaks


Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful,
Because people love us and post us on the socials,
Because we elicit likes a-plenty,
Because we are the most muppet-like of all the birds -
We can’t help it if we’re irresistible.
We’re just over here catching bugs
and beating small vertebrates to death,
just,
you know,
being Podargiformes.


©Ruth Bowen Hersey


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