tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post824666355592100113..comments2024-03-27T19:59:10.159+00:00Comments on Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park birds: Ralph Hancockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-35216565199142116742016-04-25T19:58:13.089+01:002016-04-25T19:58:13.089+01:00Thank you so very much for this. I'd be extrem...Thank you so very much for this. I'd be extremely grateful if you'd let us know when Goshawk Lives will be re-published.Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-68823053083734559162016-04-25T19:12:48.624+01:002016-04-25T19:12:48.624+01:00Thanks for all your contributions.Thanks for all your contributions.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-44446506338000115992016-04-25T19:12:24.903+01:002016-04-25T19:12:24.903+01:00Ordinary solar panels use only the visible wavelen...Ordinary solar panels use only the visible wavelengths. But they have a reflective layer at the back to make the most of the light, so presumably the infra-red goes straight out again and the back of the panel is more or less at ambient temperature.Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-35015653266180372672016-04-25T16:25:46.790+01:002016-04-25T16:25:46.790+01:00Hmm, yes, "pelting" music is about right...Hmm, yes, "pelting" music is about right.Dom Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-69459160552770506122016-04-25T11:59:38.052+01:002016-04-25T11:59:38.052+01:00Sorry, text-edit ate half my Comment.
I’m the f...Sorry, text-edit ate half my Comment. <br /><br />I’m the friend that sent Ulrike the Basil Bunting ode, which I would otherwise have posted. I’ll fall back on some work by the ornithologist-poet Colin Simms, who has written hundreds of bird poems – I published his “Goshawk Lives”, out of print but awaiting republication in an enlarged format, and there are two other collections of species specific writing – “Hen Harrier Poems”, which got a rave review from Robert Macfarlane in “The Guardian":<br /><br />www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/08/hen-harrier-poems-colin-simms-review-robert-macfarlane<br /><br />Here's a sample poem:<br /><br />No mower seemed the sharper<br />– the ring-tail we named “harper”, <br />her hunting no random thing <br />neatly as the ploughman’s skill <br />octaves on her passing-strings <br />scoring the sides of the hill <br />where the ling-owl is stitching. <br />Wind in their wings differing<br />to our ears. And from grasses <br />subsong. Notes that all belong – <br />their harmonies ring hill still<br />our humming begins, and passes<br />to the mind of each, a song <br />wordless, I hear you sing... <br /><br />[* with a note citing the Victorian diarist A.J. Munby: “the straightest plough lines seem curved on any hill”]<br /><br />www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/product/5169-colin-simms---hen-harrier-poems<br /><br />•<br /><br />– and there's his “Gyrfalcon Poems":<br /><br /><br />"I see the bird going away…"<br /><br />I see the bird going away<br />and a solid thing melted away<br />refinement itself refined away<br />part of the fetch and the lift and the sway <br />not the grey of goshawks, that intricate grey <br />cross-bars chequering into the cloud’s way: <br />arrowheads into one fletching goose-grey<br /><br />www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/category/1025-simms-colin/product/4006-colin-simms-gyrfalcon-poems<br /><br />••harryghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04184350321693687780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-28374597683516306332016-04-25T10:11:41.389+01:002016-04-25T10:11:41.389+01:00What wonderful picture of the Wagtail. He looks li...What wonderful picture of the Wagtail. He looks like he is levitating.<br /><br />Has anyone written a study about bird's sense of decoration, I wonder? Coots and Swans appear to have the interior design gene in full working order.<br /><br />Lovely idea, to quote one's favourite bird poems. Here goes mine:<br /><br /> The Sea and the Skylark (Gerard Manley Hopkins)<br /> <br /> <br />ON ear and ear two noises too old to end <br /> Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore; <br /> With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar, <br />Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend. <br /> <br />Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend, <br /> His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score <br /> In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour <br />And pelt music, till none ’s to spill nor spend. <br /> <br />How these two shame this shallow and frail town! <br /> How ring right out our sordid turbid time, <br />Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown, <br /> <br /> Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime: <br />Our make and making break, are breaking, down <br /> To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.Tinúvielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04794275230697959519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-84980858592977128602016-04-25T06:25:49.141+01:002016-04-25T06:25:49.141+01:00On the subject of solar panels as suitable nest si...On the subject of solar panels as suitable nest sites: do they absorb or reflect light in the infra-red spectrum? Is the shade of a solar panel particularly warm or cool as a result?Dom Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-17382679500677917522016-04-25T06:22:22.925+01:002016-04-25T06:22:22.925+01:00I'm a sucker for Hopkins:
'As kingfishers...I'm a sucker for Hopkins:<br /><br />'As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; <br />As tumbled over rim in roundy wells <br />Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's <br />Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; <br />Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: <br />Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; <br />Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, <br />Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.'<br /><br />Raucous skylarks have lost their romance for me I'm afraid. Woodlarks on the other hand I could listen to all day.Dom Gnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-64962688161287419662016-04-25T02:08:27.984+01:002016-04-25T02:08:27.984+01:00That's Basil for you.That's Basil for you.Ulrikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06022985141813875238noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-45395678820407313572016-04-25T01:12:06.710+01:002016-04-25T01:12:06.710+01:00What a metaphysical bird. I hear 'My tree, my ...What a metaphysical bird. I hear 'My tree, my tree, my tree. Go away, go away.'Ralph Hancockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686354797977020917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8278510471239667560.post-77951953056944726262016-04-25T00:37:22.141+01:002016-04-25T00:37:22.141+01:00all that singing everywhere right now brought to m...all that singing everywhere right now brought to mind a reminder of the Basil Bunting poem a friend sent me recently:<br /><br />A thrush in the syringa sings.<br />'Hunger ruffles my wings, fear,<br />lust, familiar things.<br />Death thrusts hard. My sons<br />by hawk's beak, by stones, by cat and weasel, die.<br />From a shaken bush I<br />list familiar things,<br />fear, hunger, lust.'<br />Oh gay thrush!<br />Ulrikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06022985141813875238noreply@blogger.com