Dictionary of Birds
(Any Order)

JAY.

He has a reddish body.    Half his wings are bright
blue & the rest black.      He has a quick eye
& sharply curved beak.
Critics say. he's a thieving sneak,
A scavenger.

Preciously guarding his pheasants’ eggs
Milord’s keeper nailed him
raggedly fluttering in the wind
to a treestump billboard.

THIS ENDED HIS 2ND YEAR
For the 1st he flew wherever he wished...

He lived close to my house
(exchanged by a small boy for 6d)
warmly in a thick firtree.

HE WAS AS VAIN AS A COOT.

Once he fell
preening & swaggering
cockily admiring himself
into a greenscum waterbutt.

Sometimes running - hide & seek - among trees & shrubs
(with him swooping & searching )
I softly whistled. Loudly squawking he immediately found me.

YESTERDAY I WALKED IN THE PHEASANT WOOD.

Still blue/black & fluttering in the wind
Spreadeagled & bedraggled
with dim eyes –
he silently flung me I think a kind of greeting.