Sunny Winter Morning
The sun was out and slanting
As it does in
The later days of January,
Gazing at some bare branched trees
In the meadow, illuminated
By the sunlight,
I was surprised to see red apples
At the top of
A distant apple tree,
Only when the fruit began to fly,
Did I realize
That the winter robins had arrived.
Carl Scott Harker ©2021
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Observation #1: There is a medium sized deciduous tree without its leaves about forty feet from a shorter holly tree with green leaves and red berries. In the mornings, I’ve watched a flock of 25 or so robins spend their time flying back and forth between the two trees. One bird will fly in one direction and be replaced by a robin going the opposite direction.
On the taller tree, the birds rest on the top branches soaking up the warmth of the sun. On the holly tree, the birds scurry in amongst the leaves, doing small jumps between branches, getting into the best position to grab a holly berry.
When it is colder, they ignore me, which allows me to get close enough to watch robins gobble berries, one, two, three and see the berries travel down their gullets.
Observation #2: One afternoon, in a patch of grass bordered by a fence, a road, a building and some trees, I discovered 6 robins feeding in an unusual pattern. Each bird was walking in a different direction from the center of the patch towards the edges with their back to each other. They were feeding. But at the same time, I had the sense that the birds were also acting as lookouts for each other — watch birds — ready to fly up with a cry of warning, if any danger approached from their unique directions.
Observation #3: I am having a hard time distinguishing between the movements of a group of robins and a group of quail when they are moving around on the ground. It seems to me that the robins are hopping less and running more like quail do. It makes me wonder if, in a thousand years from now, robins will become ground birds, like the quail are now?
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My latest book of poetry is a collection of poems written during the monster’s occupation in the White House, the last four years. You can find the book here on Amazon: The Trump Poems: Witnessing Evil.