Birds

Give me your common or garden bird any day –
a twerpy Sparrow or songy Blackbird –
in place of the salmon Corncrake or the champagne Chaffinch.
I like the rubbish birds, the motorbiking Ravens
and the pecky Chickens;
the others are too stuck up for me,
preening themselves in the pages of bird books,
admiring themselves through the twitcher’s lens,
all too aware of their lah-di-dah ornithology.
It ruffles my feathers to think that a London Pigeon,
a gawky, grey, city tramp, panhandling Trafalgar Square,
is regarded as a lesser spotted citizen
of the kingdom of the air
than a Kingfisher –
however much I’m into turquoiserie.