Bird-loving Chinese
Lovely poetic sound, and I wonder what prompted Leigh Fermor to describe the Chinese in such terms as I am...
Detonations of flight
An original way to capture the sudden soaring of a flock of birds. A few weeks ago, a flock of...
Poems for my family 007 – Carlos Williams
Listening time: under 3 minutes.
The lovely opening line of this poem by William Carlos Williams creates a...
Bellowing bullfinches
Never heard a bullfinch, so I don't know if they bellow, but it isn't an easy word to associate with...
Chatteration
'Again there was a sudden chatteration of gulls.' A fine description of the confabulations of sea-gulls when they get...
Tide-rippled sea
Nicolson's book is as much about the sea as the land, and the tidal pull it exerted for centuries on...
Steel-blue plumes, gleams and feathers
Orlando has a love of beautiful feathers fallen from passing birds, as do I. She seems to be particularly partial...
Slate-colored snowbirds
Firstly, I like the idea of a 'snow' bird being the colour of slate. And being obsessed with colours and...
Widest-winged condor
This novel being set in England, I liked this evocation of a splendid bird from the other side of the...
Spring cleaning your burrow
If you read Sea Room, you will fall in love with puffins, utterly endearing, quirky birds. Here Nicolson describes their...
Fresh-opened blossoms and mounting larks
I like the playfulness of sharing the divine charms of a bright spring day, even while saying it's probably wasted...
Eggs like a Jackson Pollock
Are puffin eggs like a Jackson Pollock, or did Jackson Pollock find some inspiration in the designs of eggs?
We...
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