Saturday 27 July 2024

Merlin to the rescue



 After days of being perplexed by a cry emanating from  a copse of trees I resorted to the wisdom of my Merlin bird app. I'd been thinking fox or fox cub, maybe in distress, and had been trawling through the thicket at 7 a.m. looking for a wounded creature. 

The creature turns out to be a sparrow hawk and far from distressed I'd say it's making a meal of it, surrounded as it is by wrens, robins, blue tits and siskins....

Am reposting a poem I wrote a few months ago about the sparrow hawk that visited our back garden.

https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/sparrowhawk/

The Killing Field

He would have had his head tilted listening for earthworms.

He wouldn't have noticed a shadow hugging the ground

or heard the short wings swooping the air 

propelling the raptor forward, its long tail fanned out 

to break speed.


The last thing the blackbird saw was the yellow eyed sparrow hawk

fixing it in a deadly stare before claws descending 

left shorn feathers blacken the air.


What we saw looking out our kitchen window

was a hooked beak delve into bird skull 

and strong yellow legs pin their prey to the ground.


It was too late to save the songster 

and probably unwise.


Copyright Cathy Leonard 2024



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