by beatriceotto | Sep 19, 2017 | triologisms |
Firstly, I like the idea of a ‘snow’ bird being the colour of slate. And being obsessed with colours and the names we give them, I notice how many hues and shades can only be described in reference to something of that colour. Elsewhere Thoreau describes...
by beatriceotto | Sep 4, 2017 | metaphors |
An original way to capture the sudden soaring of a flock of birds. A few weeks ago, a flock of a few hundred descended on the garden, half strutting about the lawn yanking elastic and reluctant worms out of the ground, the other half congregating in the apple tree,...
by beatriceotto | Aug 29, 2017 | triologisms |
Having always associated ‘sawyer’ with Tom of the same name, it never occurred to me that, like many surnames, it is also a livelihood, in this case, that of sawing wood for a living. Thoreau uses it to describe the sawing sound of the ovenbird, an...
by beatriceotto | Aug 28, 2017 | metaphors |
A marvelous metaphor this, the piercing joy of seeing a darting kingfisher. May you experience many such kingfisher-flaring moments. ‘That night and the night after and the night after, wherever she went, always in her own little circle of intimates, she...
by beatriceotto | Aug 21, 2017 | metaphors |
Well, if you’re going to outshine your peers, let it be by such a striking margin. Here Leigh Fermor is referring to the paintings of Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480-1538). ‘But he outshines his fellow-Danubians like a lyre-bird among carrion-crows.’...
by beatriceotto | Aug 15, 2017 | triologisms |
What majesty in this triologism – a hawk thriving despite a New England winter. ‘The warmest springs hardly allow me the glimpse of a frog’s heel as he settles himself in the mud, and I think I am lucky if I see one winter-defying hawk or a hardy...
by beatriceotto | Jul 5, 2017 | collective nouns |
As I’ve never seen a chough, knowingly, I don’t know what they chatter...
by beatriceotto | Jul 5, 2017 | collective nouns |
Never heard a bullfinch, so I don’t know if they bellow, but it isn’t an easy word to associate with a...
by beatriceotto | Jul 5, 2017 | collective nouns |
‘Peep’ is for chicks, surely, but when they grow up, it doesn’t quite work. How about instead: a haggle of hens, a pecking of chickens or a brooding or clucking of either … the latter evoking that contented, almost purring sound hens make when...
