Counting birds, today, you say?
Well, don’t let me get in your way.
I’m only here to strut my stuff
and scoff some seeds, if there’s enough,
and then I’ll leave you to your count.
These chaffinches – they must amount,
for starters, to the biggest crowd.
(And then there’s me – am I allowed?)
Don’t forget young robin there;
the dunnocks, sparrows, and … but where
have all those daily starlings gone?
A census and that gang not on?
(These seeds are tasty by the way.
I might return another day.)

poem © Celia Warren 2012

If you have an hour to spare today or tomorrow, 28-29 January, do take part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. It’s very relaxing to sit, watch and count the birds in your garden, or an area you are visiting. Today this pheasant arrived, as if to say, Do I count?

Simple sausage, beans and mash
tickles the tastebuds; saves on cash;
helps the waistline cut a dash
after yuletide’s annual bash.

Simple sausage, mash and beans,
(never mind there are no greens);
now you’ll fit inside your jeans:
that’s what Happy New Year means!

poem © Celia Warren 2012

                  poem © Celia Warren 2011

Wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas!

To ‘master’ something means to become skilled through much practice. The term ‘master’, therefore, is by no means confined to men, but also women. Poet and playwright, Thomas Hood was born and lived in London. At the time of his writing, the city was prone to thick fogs that, mixed with smoke, became ‘smogs’, making visibility very poor. This added considerably to the usual greyness of a November day and inspired this seasonal poem:

No!

No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon-
No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day -
No sky – no earthly view -
No distance looking blue -
No road – no street – no “t’ other side the way” -
No end to any Row -
No indications where the Crescents go -
No top to any steeple -
No recognitions of familiar people -
No courtesies for showing ‘em -
No knowing ‘em!
To travelling at all – no locomotion,
No inkling of the way – no notion -
No go – by land or ocean -
No mail – no post -
No news from any foreign coast -
No park – no ring – no afternoon gentility -
No company – no nobility -
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees.
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds.
November!

What a lovely time I had in Cheltenham! It was great to meet such an enthusiastic audience of children and grown-ups all enjoying poems from the RSPB Anthology of Wildlife Poetry.  And all my little origami swans and mice and snails found new homes!

If you were there, do stop by on my blog here to say hello! And, if you weren’t there, then here’s one of the little poems you missed. (Everyone took this poem home with them – in their heads!)

Mr Snail

Quaint and quirky, never quick,
Mother Nature’s glue-stick.
Hard shell, tacky tail,
Glue the garden, Mister Snail.

poem © Celia Warren 2011
from The RSPB Anthology of Wildlife Poetry
ISBN 978 1 4081 3118 3

Meanwhile, we are three weeks into September already – where does the time go? Coming up shortly in the poetry calendar is National Poetry Day. This year it falls on 6th October and the theme for 2011 is Games. I love this time of year. Fifty years ago, I’d have been playing in the school playground at lots of different outdoor games, most of which began with deciding who was It, or who was On. It might have been the chaser in a game of ‘tiggy’ or ‘tiggy-touch-wood’ or we could have been deciding who was going to be Farmer for The Farmer’s in his Den.

One of the simplest dips that we used a lot (in North Lincolnshire in the 1950s/1960s) was: Dip dip dip /  My blue ship / Sails on the water / Like a cup and saucer / You are not It. As this dip contained the magic ‘not’ word, it meant repeating the dip until one person was left who was ‘It’. I liked this dip as it fascinated me in the way in contained a full-rhyme (dip/ship) and a near-rhyme (water/saucer).

Now I’m too old for playground games, but I still like making up dips. They’re handy things when you’re deciding what to have for dinner or which pair of shoes to wear. And I’m not too old to make up new ones. Here are a couple of my very own dips ( dip-poems © Celia Warren 2011):

Dip, dip, daffodil,
Trumpet shout,
Dip, dip, daffodil,
You are OUT.

*

Dip, dip, jellyfish,
in the sea,
Won’t sting you, so
don’t sting me.
If you do, then
it will be:
Dip, dip, jellyfish,
out goes s/he!

How about making up a dip of your own? You could surprise your friends on National Poetry Day – and maybe even invent a new game to go with it! Have fun.

No, it’s Honesty!

Honesty grows in the garden
with a face as pale as a ghost.
Once it was rosy, a purply pink;
now it’s as white as a post.

Tomorrow its face will be silver,
like a fairy-coin it will seem.
It will spend its seeds in the soil below,
before it lies down to dream.

Honesty dies in the winter,
as if truth were a thing of the past.
But in the spring, it will burst afresh:
Honesty’s made to last.

photo and poem © Celia Warren 2011

I hope you are having a great summer. Next week from 19-21 August, it’s the annual national Bird Fair, held in Rutland, and I shall be there launching a beautiful new book: The RSPB Anthology of Wildlife Poems. It’s my proudest achievement yet: a beautifully illustrated collection of poems, old and new, classic and modern – a book for keeps!

The launch will take place at 1.30pm on Saturday, 20th August, so do come and say ‘hello’ and hear me read some of the poems if you can make this fun event. (The Bird Fair is such a hugely popular event it has become known as the Glastonbury of bird watchers!) You will also have a chance to buy the book ahead of publication; it is released for general sale on 1st September.

  A pink ball came to play in our garden
  to discover what lay beyond
  the wall. She found pots of flowers
  and lilies that float on a pond.

She stayed to chat to a blackbird
and bounced around with the bees.
But then she jumped over the wall again
when she found she was missing Louise!

poem © Celia Warren 2011

Dunnock tells Bluetit,
Who tattles to Mouse:
“We’ll meet you there
Beside the house.

Bring your friends,
There’s plenty to share,
For feather and feather
And feather and fur.”

photos & poem © Celia Warren 2011

I spend a lot of time enjoying the bird-life rife in South Devon (and elsewhere) and began to wonder if I am becoming a twitcher (not to be confused with Twitter – I don’t tweet). So I decided to look in that fount of (all? any?) knowledge: Wikipedia, and discovered a Twitchers’ Vocabulary (jargon words related to bird-watchers), which made me conclude I’m a dude!

I quote:

Dude: “A posh bird-watcher who doesn’t really know all that much about birds.” – Bill Oddie, 1980 (Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book. Methuen Publishing. ISBN 0413494802); “A novice birdwatcher; slightly pejorative term. Also used to refer to someone who primarily seeks out birds for photography rather than study.” -  2008 (“The A to Z of birding.” Australian Geographic 90: 104-105)

I may be a dude, but I am actually interested in finding out more about birds, and checking on their identity. I often reach for my bird books to look them up. But I also enjoy photographing them with my faithful point-and-click digital camera. And I feed them all the year round – they appreciate ‘easy food’ at this time of year, when there are lots of hungry baby beaks to fill, as well as in the sparse cold of winter.

Some birds have proved too quick and elusive for me. The wren, that I often glimpse as it roots around in the tangled depths of clematis stems, is one. So I have resorted to the old coin of my early childhood to illustrate this charming little bird.

This poem appears in The RSPB Anthology of Wildlife, which I have had the joy and privilege of compiling for A & C Black. It will be available to buy, soon – a book for keeps. 2011 publication date: 1st September: a date to remember!

ISBN 978 1 4081 3118 3