..a glint for the tree

On one of my last present-buying trips into town before Christmas I managed to buy a present for me - oops!  It's called The Lost Spells and is a follow on (or 'little sister' as they put it) to The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.  Highly recommended!

Here is The Lost Spells poem  Goldfinch:

God knows the world needs all
  the good it can get right now -

Out in the gardens and fields,
  Goldfinches are gilding the land for free,

Leaving little gifts of light:
  a gleam for the teasel'
  a glint for the tree.

Did you hear their high scattered song,
  their bright wings' flitter,

Falling around you as flecks,
  as grains, as glitter?

Imagine the loss of their lustre,
  the lack of their sheen:

No more shimmer,
  a worrying absence of gilt.

Charm on, Goldfinch, charm on -

Heaven help us when
  all your gilt is gone.

Well I don't know about you, but when I first read it I immediately wanted to find another goldfinch to blip, and this morning I did. It was in the oak tree I see from my kitchen window.  A good thing really because the sun lasted all of 10 minutes and if I'd gone to the reserve it would have been raining before I got there!

I'm having much fun with looking at your blips (and mine) right now.  For Christmas, J bought me a fabulous huge sexy screen for my rather humdrum computer and I'm loving the effect it has on images.

Happy Sunday evening/Monday morning  xx