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Posted in Ornithology, Photography | 3 Comments

3 Responses

1. on Tuesday September 10, 2013 at 10:01 pm | Reply Anthony C

   A wonderful photograph john F-S. And my goodness those young swallows will need all the help they can get ahead of their long and perilous journey far, far south. Every year we are all slightly heartbroken when “our” swallows and martins fade away, we reflect wistfully upon their difficult flight, and our unmitigated joy upon seeing the first swallows and martins come home in Spring.

   Here’s John Clare

   The Swallow

   Pretty swallow, once again
   Come and pass me in the rain.
   Pretty swallow, why so shy?
   Pass again my window by.

   The horsepond where he dips his wings,
   The wet day prints it full of rings.
   The raindrops on his [ ] track
   Lodge like pearls upon his back.

   Then again he dips his wing
   In the wrinkles of the spring,
   Then oer the rushes flies again,
   And pearls roll off his back like rain.

   Pretty little swallow, fly
   Village doors and windows by,
   Whisking oer the garden pales
   Where the blackbird finds the snails;

   Whewing by the ladslove tree
   For something only seen by thee;
   Pearls that on the red rose hing
   Fall off shaken by thy wing.

   On that low thatched cottage stop,
   In the sooty chimney pop,
   Where thy wife and family
   Every evening wait for thee.

   John Clare

   
   
2. on Wednesday September 11, 2013 at 5:44 am | Reply Patti B

   Thank you for that Anthony. It’s a while since I read that poem and had forgotten it. John Clare’s poems are such exquisite reminders of a country life that seems so much more familiar to those of us lucky enough to be living in Parwich. They would make an apt accompaniment to many of the beautiful photographs that are often on this blog. Perhaps the blog could run a few more of his poems in the future?

   
   
3. on Wednesday September 11, 2013 at 8:19 pm | Reply Anthony C

   Thank you Patti. I very clearly recall a moment, as a boy in Derbyshire some decades past, dismounting my bike on a country lane in amazement at the scores of swallows criss-crossing the path right in front of me. I must have stood astride my bike in wonder for an hour at least. I was, and to this day remain, mesmerised by their aerial beauty, and by the almost confiding bond between swallows and humanity. And I’m so glad to report the encouraging fact that since my boyhood experience I had never witnessed swallows in similar numbers (in the UK at least) until a moment only a week or so ago under the eaves of a spinney up at Alsop. I can’t tell you what joy I felt.

   So here’s more from John Clare:

   “On Seeing Two Swallows Late in October” by John Clare

   Lone occupiers of a naked sky
   When desolate November hovers nigh
   And all your fellow tribes in many crowds
   Have left the village with the autumn clouds
   Careless of old affections for the scene
   That made them happy when the fields were green
   And left them undisturbed to build their nests
   In each old chimney like to welcome guests
   Forsaking all like untamed winds they roam
   And make with summers an unsettled home
   Following her favours to the farthest lands
   O’er untraced oceans and untrodden sands
   Like happy images they haste away
   And leave us lonely till another may

   But little lingerers old esteem detains
   Ye haply thus to brave the chilly air
   When skies grow dull with winter’s heavy rains
   And all the orchard trees are nearly bare
   Yet the old chimneys still are peeping there
   Above the russet thatch where summers tide
   Of sunny joys gave you such social fare
   As makes you haply wishing to abide
   In your old dwellings through the changing year
   I wish ye well to find a dwelling here
   For in the unsocial weather ye would fling
   Gleamings of comfort through the winter wide
   Twittering as wont above the old fire side
   And cheat the surly winter into spring

   
   

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