Ready for off

Bird Table

 

Ornithological oasis

In a dowdy garden

Where the birds crowd

Winging in on a prayer, unasked

Yet here’s their daily bread

Scruffy sparrow, dandy goldfinch

At the top table

Robin, hoodlum- starling

Vie for an outlaw meal

Peanut dispenser and fat balls

Swing from eager attention

Green and chaff finches

Compete in different jerseys

As timid wren and hedge sparrow

Keep to the touchlines

Wood-pigeon gleans the flags

Beneath the woodwork

With some authority

Associated with size perhaps?

A sudden scatter and panic

And a feeder is suddenly food

As the ambushing sparrow-hawk

Drives-thru this avian McDonald’s

And in the garden's quiet

Leftover feathers fall

 

© Mike Laycock (silversalt)

Done