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