Snow in Dublin

A sudden fall of snow
the garden is strangely anew
bare branches traced by white shadows
pale gold skies luminous
behind chimney pots.
Purple Leaves lean down and nod under a great weight.

starlings
Originally uploaded by bobby buckley plantplanner

It is reported that the once common starling is reducing in numbers,so it is nice to see the starlings below voraciously “pigging” out on butter.In cold weather creatures have a great need to consume fat to keep warm.The butter  found itself ,after lying unused in the fridge for weeks,out in the cold roof of the green house . Besides the pleasure of watching the birds happily feeding I smile ironically that what could be coursing unwelcomed  and unhealthily through my arteries is obviously keeping flocks of starlings sustained.

The butter is the clarion cry for the starlings . They call and gesture to their friends and they gather on the Bay  tree and file down in their preordained pecking order wings flailing rather flapping more like squabbling bootboys than fluttering songbirds.Only the odd blackbird soprano dares to interrupt their feeding .Meanwhile the finches and tits can feed undisturbed on the grain and nuts further down the garden.

When I was a child in the Fifties the skys were full of starlings and house sparrows. The cheep cheep of the sparrows has disappeared from our everyday soundtrack and I miss it so .So I celebrate the excited voraciousness of the starlings. Maybe as they use my garden as a fat food deli I hope that they eat healthily of my tiny slugs and bugs.Whats good for the starling is good for the garden .

The Wild Swans At Coole by William Butler Yeats: “Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?”

The Wild Swans At Coole by William Butler Yeats: “Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?”