Conversations with Writers: Interview (Part 2 of 2) Carol Thistlethwaite, author of ‘from the field book’

Follow the link below to the second part of my interview:
Conversations with Writers: Interview (Part 2 of 2) Carol Thistlethwaite, author of ‘from the field book’

Conversations with Writers: Interview (Part 1 of 2): Carol Thistlethwaite, author of ‘from the field book’

This has been on the Internet for a while but just in case you haven't seen it follow the link below:
Conversations with Writers: Interview (Part 1 of 2): Carol Thistlethwaite, author of ‘from the field book’

Trailing Poems for the Days

The poem a day prompt was 'detail' so I thought but not for long...
Distinguishing rooks from crows is easy - unless they happen to be flying. And since my BTO tetrad is inhabited by corvids, corvids and corvids, I need to get my eyes & head round these flapping flocks.

EDGES
It's easy to distinguish when they're landed:
the domed head, shabby look, bald-beaked rook,
the crow altogether a tighter, neater bird.
But what when they're in flight?
The flocks are rooks; the solitary, crows-
but that's not always so.
Sometimes you can still make out the peaked head of the rook,
or you can focus on their tails:
roundness indicates a rook,
straight edged is a crow.
Their calls, too, echo their sharpness:
relaxed caws from rooks,
harsh grating from crows.
Toady's photos used by kind permission of Mike Atkinson. Check out the link from this page.

Poem a Day

TETRAD VISIT
So absorbed in placing my feet
on tussocks, that I didn't notice the donkeys
until one brayed -
ten or more in the higher field,
and straight ahead the farmer,
a sprite eighty-something,
coming to meet me at the gate.
Pleased that I live in Euxton,
better still that I know his cousin Alice
and her increasing family.
He proudly leads me to a two-day foal,
soft, dense grey, erect ears, hay breath,
laying on dry straw.
He makes no mention of the Lostock
and how it had overflowed,
had been spreading, spreading,
spreading to the barn,
but I can see the traces of a rainbow
around the foal's face, the promise
that had held the flood at bay.

Image copied from www.the1magazine.com

Wigan Flashes

The advantages of joining a local wildlife group are numerous; not least is having local experts to call on and also field trips to join. Yesterday I went to a reserve that was new to me - Wigan Flashes. Although we didn't see the bittern that has been seen there earlier in the week, we did see lots of water fowl and I learnt to distinguish a gadwall from all the other brownish female ducks.Above L is a female gadwall, R is a male. Although not always visible, the white patch on the plumage helps gives distinguish a gadwall from other female ducks.

Photo of Wigan Flashes copied from http://www.lancswt.org.uk/Our Reserves/wigan_flashes.htm

Photo of Gadwall used by kind permission of Dave Appleton www.gobirding.eu See link

Wildlife and Myth

It's no good recommending a poem a day to everyone without doing it myself. I've not exactly managed a poem a day - so this morning is catch-up time. Day 7's prompt was 'myth'. I've never really combined wildlife and myth, never really thought about it although I now recognise an interesting potential which I may well return to at a future date.
Below is my first (and rather obvious) draft for today:

PERSEPHONE
... and as the earth prepares
to watch her journey back to Hades,
it lines her route with gifts:
plump seeds, golden leaves,
agile paws and farewell fanning wings,
and as she passes by,
trees sigh, and finally let loose
their effort of upholding the beauty
that such a presence demands.

A Poem A Day for November with Poetic Asides

If you want some motivation / stimulation to write this month why not try Robert Lee Brewer's blog? He's setting a prompt each day with a view to having a chapbook's worth of poems at the end of the month.
http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides