As Mecklenburg Audubon Society members began staying home to slow the spread of COVID-19, former president Ken Kneidel decided to share a bird poem on the Meckbirds email list serve. Spontaneously, five more members followed suit with poems of their own. Now that everyone in North Carolina is under a stay-at-home order, we hope you enjoy these cheery words and the springtime birds who inspired them. Get your Vitamin N and stay healthy.

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'Tis an early sign of spring,

When Kinglets start to sing,

But you know that spring has struck,

When you hear a *Butter Butt.

– Ken Kneidel

*”Butter Butt” is another name for a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

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Can’t leave my house, sequestered inside,

    forced isolation, this virus high tide;

Our windows are open, bird songs raise our moods,

    Spring migrants and residents, sweet interludes.

Cardinals, Wrens, Thrashers, Warblers, and Owl,

    Bluebirds, Jays, White-throats, they’re all on the prowl;

Chickadees, Titmice, Red-tails and Dove,

    Red-Bellies, Downies and all that I love;

My heart is so lifted by my Garden’s delights,

    I find gifts in solace and joy in its sights;

In the midst of this crisis, with sane fortitude,

    we’ll take our Vitamin N (Nature) with calm gratitude!

– Wendy Kaplan

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Cardinals, thrashers, mockingbirds sing,

Cedars full of hundreds of waxwings,

Forced at home is not too crappy,

When birds daily are making me happy!!

– Laura Blakesley

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If you don’t get in a rush,

You might spy a waterthrush.

When bluebirds claim a nesting site,

Our scary world almost seems right.

– Malia Kline

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Said the male to the female starling

“Just look at that townhouse, my darling!

A bathroom vent maybe

Could shelter our babies—“

Said she, “You’re both brilliant and charming!”

– Angel Harris

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Hey birds! My son, who’s home from his U,

Might join me in wandering to look for you!

Two Barred Owls outside our door,

Got him jazzed by “trading fours!”

– Don Stuart