01/09/2024
Voting has opened today for Forest & Bird’s annual Bird of the Year contest. 🐦 My all time favourite New Zealand bird remains the terrific tūī, and I’m fortunate that many of them visit the feeders in my garden daily. This morning’s interaction with my feathered friends inspired this poem, so today seems like the perfect day to share it! I hope you like it! 🙏 x
If you’d like to vote for my tūī friends, or any other bird, I’ll pop the contest voting link in the comments.
Feeding the tūīs
The tūīs are waiting for me.
Impatiently hopping from branch to branch,
from roof aerial to fencepost,
and back to branch.
As if this frenzied dance
will somehow hasten my arrival.
Fortunately, I rise early,
otherwise I am quite sure
that they would sing me awake.
Demanding that I deliver
the sweet, homemade nectar
they have come to expect
each morning.
To emphasise their readiness,
they complement the dance
with their unique call.
Tuneful notes,
interspersed with clicks and cackles,
noisy and complex,
definitively them.
More expectant birds arrive.
The sound grows
to a raucous cacophony
and the branch prancing gathers speed
as anticipation builds.
When I step outside,
hands full of clinking bottles
promising syrupy sweetness,
they scatter, momentarily, not far,
ready to swoop in and satiate.
Bellies full, beaks sticky,
they loiter among the leaves
continuing their musical chatter.
I like to think they are saying,
‘thank you for the food’.
I reply,
‘thank you for your song.’
