Travellers Joy - Cameos of Birdlife #3
The frost today is everywhere - a heavy hoar frost covering the fields and hedges; all a sparkle in the early morning winter sun. In the hedgerow, a restless, roving party of Long Tailed Tit weave through frosted beards 1 ...
bumbarrel roving through the hedge travellers joy
Just a few at first, then five, no seven; twelve now. Everywhere - all around! And then they were gone. Restless travellers full of joy.
Other birds are on the move too - a Great Tit oils it’s rusty hinge; Blue Tit ring out their joyful bells, and Nuthatch whistle from the churchyard beeches.
Spring has sprung (well almost 2).
Artist Biography
The header image is from an original acrylic painting of long tailed tit by Jeremy Paul - a Manx-based, award winning, wildlife artist, and is used here with permission.
A completely self taught artist he works in acrylics, developing his paintings in many layers of paint with extensive use of underpainting and glazes to alter the tone and atmosphere of the works. His aim as a wildlife artist is not merely to illustrate but to impart the atmosphere of the setting and the feel of wildlife in its natural environment.
You can see more of his stunning paintings here ... Gallery
Citation
The recording by Stanislas Wroza is used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-SghareAlike 4.0 license. This and many more can be found at - Xeno-Canto
I could have chosen a more appropriate day but sometimes you just have to go with it!
A whole posse of them come into our garden in spring, fly backwards for three or four days, often pecking at a particular window – then we don’t see them again till next year!
Much the same Colin. Once maybe twice a year they breeze through the garden – just travellin through.
Clive, such a beautiful bird the Long-tailed Tit. We’ve not seen many in the garden this year, compared to other years. I’ve not heard them called Bumbarrels in this part of the UK and don’t know if there is a local name. I like the one-line verse very much. Perfect for this time of year.
Thanks Ashley! They have so many wonderful names. Mumruffinn is another favourite of mine. I’ll have to see if I can find one for your neck of the woods.
Lovely writing and painting! Our birds have decided it’s spring, too, and are singing at high volume! No nests yet, but soon!
I think Spring is not far away. We are in the middle of Storm Cristoff here in the UK – so much rain and flooding. Hoping it’ll clear away by the weekend.
What a beautiful painting by Jeremy Paul. Took me to another world. Thank you for your lovely words and sharing the acrylic painting.
Thank you! If you get the chance do have a look at the other paintings in his gallery – they are stunning and ‘out of this world’. I hope he will allow me to feature more of his work in future posts.
Really enjoyed your haibun and the recording of the bumbarrel! Thanks, Clive! (I’m getting the trowel, now)
Thanks for keeping the trowel handy!!
Long-tailed tits are one of my absolute joys, always an especially lovely day when I encounter them. We had quite a few gather in our garden a few weeks ago, for the first time ever! They are more normally along the river path on my walks but even that is the rarity. And what a wonderful artist!
It’s a lovely painting that captures them perfectly. Your own are equally lovely. Some of my favourites are the ‘Big Voice’, ‘Lord of the summer song’ ‘Teeming with Life’ and ‘Winter Coats’
That’s so kind of you to say so! Am just learning the art of falrly realistic watercolour painting, following some online tutorials, hoping to work on some more bird-art in a different medium this year.
[…] This late winter hokku was composed by Clive Bennett, and can be found at his blog. […]
Beautiful and even the strange bunbarrel word!
Each English and Scottish lowland county seems to have its own dialect word for this bird and in some cases several. Here’s just a few Georgina!
Bumbarrel, Hedge Mumruffin, Poke Pudding, Huggen-Muffin, Juffit, Fuffit, Jack-in-a-Bottle, Bottle Tom, Bum Towel, Prinpriddle, Feather Poke, Long-tailed Mag, Long-tailed Farmer, Can Bottle, Hedge Jug, Bottle Bird, Barrel Tom, Patiney, Patteny Paley, Ragamuffin, Bellringer, Nimble Tailor, French Pie, Bottle-tit, Billy-featherpoke, Long-tailed Chittering, Puddneypoke, Bottle Builder, Dog Tail, Long Pod, Bush Oven, Oven Bird and Millithrum (Miller’s Thumb) – all names for a common English bird of hedgerow and heath – the long-tailed tit.
And a recent addition – Flying lollipop.
Just a few. That’s amazing! Where did you gather all these. It’s like the Macfarlane Lost Spells book but richer!
Mostly from Birds Britannica by Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey. And All the Birds of the Air: The Names, Lore, and Literature of British Birds. Both a great source for all things birds. I should think that long tailed tit probably have the greatest number of vernacular names of any bird.
Amazing little bird! Thanks.
I love the way you use ‘travellers joy’ Clive because they are such joyful birds. That’s a wonderful painting too.
To be in the middle of a roving party of Long Tailed Tit is something rather special. They seem oblivious to everything else. For a moment I’m part of their world. Uplifting!
I ended up buying a print of the painting, it arrived today and is lovely!
Wow that’s fantastic! I’m so pleased 😊
They are planning for some meeting or get together it seems