The Green Woodpecker

Bespectacled and

Moustached he sagely searches

Thro' the green library

A stealth of soft green

Creeps across the frosty lawn 

Seen only by me

Long-tailed tits visiting the bird feeders

Shrill whistles call the

Raggle taggle long-tailed corps

To attention now

On Minster Beach in November

Receeding tides leave

Polished sand flats mirroring

Oystercatcher's stride

Autumn on the North Downs

Pheasant struts the fields
Copper, gold and bronze feathers
Gird the early mist

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Startled by engine
Pheasant leaps from the hedgerow
Tail feather flag flies

Crow

Crow on the chainlink
A bright balance of feathers
Catching the free breeze

Six Magpies

Six magpies haggle

Over a succulent snail

Who wins, heads or tails?

Two Cormorants

Two cormorants stretch

And scour the early sky with

River thick feathers

Bird Moment Haiku

This is a project I've thought about for a while. A few years back I wrote a haiku every week over  a year as an observational diary. Some of them contained birds. Since then, I've thought about writing a set of haiku just about birds. 

This first post brings together haiku from the diary and bird haiku since then. They are observations from the birds I watch in our garden and seen on journeys out and about. 

They are Bird Moment Haiku.

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Swift skies overhead

As those wings scythe through the air
Releasing summer

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The Boot Fair

Skylarks sing the sky
As browsers at the boot fair
Find hidden treasure

~

In clear light laughing

Three jays cajole the morning

Into smiling day

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Three jays hopping mad
Feathers rail in wind and hail
Fight in fir tree

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Buzzard

From the car window
Shadow bird hunts motorway

Outstretched wings scratch sky

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Garrulous magpie

Shouting at the wind and rain
Ruffled feathers fly

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Fleeting flash of grey

Nuthatch hunts along the fence

Must have young to feed

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Starling struts the lawn
Insect, insect till beak full

A hop and away

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Red berry starlings

All achatter, then scatter
Autumn wind skittish

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Dandelion day

Heat haze over motorway

Skylark sings of Spring

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