On Sunday night we listened to the second part of the SOS AGM. The talks on Saturday were about the Curlew, and its haunting call - the trouble it is in, and the efforts being made to help it. The second was from a couple who lived by the Straits of Gibraltar, where Europe and Africa gaze at each other across the sea - and the immense flights of migrating birds that are in the skies there.
Of course they wisely cross where the flight over water is the shortest. I have no idea where the expression "bird brain" came from! Jehovah made the birds very wise indeed. They could hardly have survived the tragedy on the earth since the loss of Eden if it had not been so.
There was a charming picture of ducks a'dabbling in the Self Isolating Bird Club (fb), that recalled a favourite poem from childhood that I posted, and that was "liked" a lot. I still love it to this day.
What a wonderful gift language is. And we now understand that animals too have a complex language of their own. Here they speak to us, in human, courtesy of Kenneth Grahame.
Ducks' Ditty
by Kenneth Grahame
All along the backwater,Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all.
Ducks’ tails, drake’s tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!
Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim--
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.
Everyone for what he likes!
We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!
High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call--
We are down a-dabbling,
Up tails all.
https://randomnoodling.blogspot.com/2013/10/poetry-friday-ducks-ditty.html
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