Featured this morning is Winifred my resident kestrel who patrols the field next door, hovering silently to dispense instant death to any mouse mad enough to move.
She can hover for long periods and in some parts of the country the kestrel is know as the windhover. To watch Winifred riding the air currents is quite spell binding, something Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) knew when he wrote the Windhover in 1877 and described the kestrel with equally breath-taking imagery.
The Windhover
To Christ Our Lord
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird — the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
The first stanza is simply sublime: the pacing, the alliteration, and the sheer sound of it is smooth and simple, it flows into your brain and stays there. It is also an amazingly accurate picture of a kestrel. The way she hovers in place facing the wind searching the field beneath her until she gives up and lets the wind sweep her “on swing” until “Rebuffed the big wind” starts to hover in place again.
I hope you enjoyed meeting Winfred and reading the poem.
2 comments:
Good Morning, Sunshine. Winifred is lovely, as are your photos and the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins! :)
Very enlightening feature. I love the poem and the attention to detail regarding the birds characteristics.
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