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