Yeah, like, Lawrence. Merry jolly and all that. Androo (More cattle, sheep
and wine vines around here than roos, but sometimes we see a couple. )



On 20 December 2013 17:04, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks, L. I  get the picture of these little dashers.
>
> B
>
> On 19/12/2013, at 10:27 PM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
> > I take it likewise - I'm not a twitcher. But the chink chink sound,as you
> > say; and the size; and look; would have done it. I have a feeling that it
> > was black-headed,which I think makes it male. But this was many years ago
> > and the event is a memory I can access only because of the poem. I was
> > editing some verse from a quarter century recently, which played around
> > with autobiography, and the memories came back as I chanted the words
> > internally. I can - sort of - see Ogo Dour now. (The clifftop rather than
> > the Ogo, cave, which is lower down), know where I was - sort of - and
> think
> > that I remember that bird fly out. That part of the world, western side
> of
> > The Lizard, near Predannack Airfield there are loads of them; so if you
> > walk there,particularly away from the coastal path theyre always flying
> up.
> > Trouble is,away from the coastal path it's marshy particularly because in
> > the 1940s they dumped concrete for their airfield, apparently without
> > thinking of drainage!! Fewer on the coastal path because there are so
> many
> > noisy bipeds. I have a feeling they don't fly far day to day; but I noted
> > this one because it could be read that it flew out into the wet granite
> > greyness of sky and sea and thought “No way”; generally they go from one
> > bush clump to another so it would have landed quickly anyway.
> >
> >
> > Well, that's my story
> >
> >
> >
> > On 19 December 2013 04:43, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Stonechats new to me, L. Not the Siberian nor the African I take it.
> Liked
> >> their dash. Did you hear a sound? Meant to be like two stones knocked
> >> together apparently acc to Uncle Wiki.
> >>
> >> B
> >>
> >> Two weakly defined subspecies are currently accepted:[2]
> >> Saxicola rubicola rubicola. In the south and east of its range, from
> >> Denmark southwest to Spain and northern Morocco, east to Poland and
> >> Ukraine, and southeast to Turkey.
> >> Saxicola rubicola hibernans. Northwestern Europe in Atlantic coastal
> >> areas, in southwestern Norway, Great Britain, Ireland and northwestern
> >> France. Birds in coastalPortugal are also often listed as this
> >> subspecies[2] but this is disputed.[3]
> >> The two subspecies differ in colour intensity following Gloger's rule,
> >> with S. r. rubicola paler and with larger white patches in the drier
> >> European continental and mediterranean climates, and S. r. hibernans
> darker
> >> brown with less white in the humid Atlantic oceanic climate. They
> >> intergrade broadly where their ranges meet, from southeastern
> >> England[4]south through France and Spain, and many individuals are not
> >> identifiable to subspecies. Extreme examples of S. r. rubicola from the
> >> driest southern areas of its range such as theAlgarve and Sicily are
> >> particularly pale and with a large white rump, and can be very similar
> to
> >> Siberian Stonechats in appearance.[3][5] nDNA microsatellite
> >> fingerprintingreveals a very small degree of separation between the two
> >> subspecies.[6]
> >> In the past, the European Stonechat was generally considered conspecific
> >> with theSiberian Stonechat and African Stonechat, lumped together as
> Common
> >> Stonechat S. torquatus. A new review adding mtDNA cytochrome b sequence
> and
> >> nuclear DNA microsatellite fingerprinting evidence strongly supports
> their
> >> separation into distinct species.[2][6] Due to a misunderstanding of the
> >> rules of Zoological nomenclature, for a short time the name S. torquatus
> >> was erroneously used for the European Stonechat rather than the African
> >> Stonechat.[6]
> >> Together with the Siberian Stonechat and Canary Islands Stonechat it
> >> constitutes eastern and western representatives of an Eurasian lineage;
> the
> >> Asian and European populations separated during the Late Pliocene or
> Early
> >> Pleistocene, roughly 1.5-2.5 mya, and Fuerteventura was colonised by
> >> western European or northwest African birds somewhat later in the Early
> >> Pleistocene, about 1-2 mya.[6]
> >> The etymology of the English name derives from its call, sounding like
> two
> >> stones knocked together. The scientific name Saxicola means
> "rock-dweller",
> >> from Latin saxum, a rock +incola, dwelling in; and rubicola,
> >> "bramble-dweller", from Latin Rubus, brambles + incola; the subspecies
> name
> >> hibernans refers to Ireland (Latin, Hibernia).
> >>
> >>> On 18 Dec 2013, at 10:01 pm, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> white out at some distance
> >>>
> >>> grey-green nearer
> >>>
> >>> the stubble-below cliffs
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> a cliff top pool
> >>>
> >>> a temporary thing of rain
> >>>
> >>> wonderfully blustered
> >>>
> >>> we look in
> >>>
> >>> leaning away from the edge
> >>>
> >>> being pushed to
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> seeking life
> >>>
> >>> some dirt or something
> >>>
> >>> but there is none
> >>>
> >>> only the moiled clay soil
> >>>
> >>> at its base
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> a stonechat dashes
> >>>
> >>> from grasses out into sea sky
> >>>
> >>> returning sharply
> >>>
> >>
> >
>



-- 
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
'Undercover of Lightness'
http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
'Shikibu Shuffle'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html