Saturday Haiku: Birdwatching

 for every seed
sparrows take at the feeder
three fall to the ground

content to forage
a towhee finds on the ground
what sparrows have dropped

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Photos by Charles Kinnaird

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A Morning Meditation

  

Back Porch Meditation

 

A young towhee,

quire proficient in her

searching for food and

in her morning calls,

is still hidden in a sparrow-grey

cloak. Her true colors

will come later.

Her life is already complete.

 

                           ~ Charles Kinnaird

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Saturday Haiku: Early Morning

 early morning light
unveils a lace-leaf maple
where the towhee sings

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Photo by Charles Kinnaird

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Backyard Birdland

 A male towhee and a squirrel have a disagreement over water rights.

 

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Saturday Haiku: Towhee Bathes

towhee bathes
Buddha relaxes
time of peace

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Photo by Charles Kinnaird

*Author's Note: The traditional haiku form is three lines with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Haiku enthusiasts today often shun the 5-7-5 rule, saying that shorter is better. Some say that because of the language differences, 3-5-3 is closer to the Japanese haiku. I sometimes use the 3-5-3 format for haiku but often like the leeway that 5-7-5 allows. Throughout the month of June, I will be using a 3-5-3 guide to practice more use of the shorter haiku format.

For more about writing haiku, see my "Notes from a Haiku Workshop"

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Saturday Haiku: Towhee Splashes

a towhee splashes

in the cool springtime waters

secure in his world

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Photo: Spotted Towhee bathing by Matthew Tekulsky



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Communing with a Towhee

...and celebrating the lack of chemicals

Shortly after we first bought our house many years ago, a lawn care specialist came by (unsolicited) and gave us an assessment of our front yard. He pointed out the mixture of grasses along with a number of weeds that grew there. He offered, for a fee,  to spray the lawn with fertilizer to enhance the grass and chemicals to eliminate the weeds. My philosophy then and now was that if it is green and can be mowed, you have a perfectly fine lawn.  That philosophy also fit in with my very small checking account, so I politely declined the young man’s offer.

Yesterday I had the day off and decided to sit on the front porch to enjoy the sunny 50-degree weather outside (unusual for the end of January). There were sparrows, finches and chickadees at the feeder, with a mourning dove and a grey squirrel scrounging for sunflower seeds that had dropped to the ground.  After a few minutes a towhee casually made its way along the ground, not 12 feet from where I sat, searching and sifting among the clover and dandelions. It was at that moment as I watched the russet-breasted towhee wandering amidst the varied growth in the yard that I was reminded of one big reason why I don’t want to pour chemicals on the lawn.  There is a world of wildlife – even here in the city – that should have a chemical free place to live. The joys that come from those encounters with our furry and feathered friends help me to celebrate the lack of chemicals on the lawn.

I could go on to lament the fact that so many of those chemicals which enhance our lawns end up as toxins in the groundwater, but the foraging towhee stands out as reason enough to let things be.  

(Photos of the Eastern Towhee are courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)