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