Friday, September 12, 2008


Flying free above,
Colours of the earth and sky
Soar on the summer's breeze

---

I jumped from a tree
and landed right on my arse.
How do I evolve?

---

artful swallows on the wing

never doubt
the rain's eternal promise

---

Darting here and there
Frozen in space and time
for all to see the beauty

---

A picture reminds
Of childhood wonders abound
Nature, in her awe

---

Watching swallows fly
mad roller coaster riders!
Up, down, all around

---

momma bird calls: fly
baby bird replies: I will try
leap and fly away

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

This doesn't help??

nobody said...

Um... what?

Penny said...

nobody: the code you need to embed, is there, look at the vid, linked here
when you look to the right it says
url [web addy]
Embed [c0de]

cut and paste the embed code to your post and that should get the
you tube video on your blog

nobody said...

No Pen,

I don't want youtube. I want to post a file that's on my desktop. But it's not possible. Blogspot only allows you to link to youtube or other such hosting sites. Never mind, I've posted a picture of a bird instead.

Actually I'm bummed now. I really wanted to see what people made of the bit of music I wanted to post. Never mind.

Anonymous said...

Hey nobody - you could try to post your music (or image?) to photobucket or somesuch then link to the url there.

That way you have it on an outside source you can embed.

Give it a try! It's free!!

I'll be back with a haiku for this soaring bird later!

~ Buff

Penny said...

sorry nobody, misunderstood,

what kind of bird is that btw?

Anonymous said...

Um... what?
Place your file on youtube or somewhere where you can store things eg. http://www.box.net/
Link to it in your article
Pop! Wallah!

This is music

I did this really quick. I'm sure you could refine it if you like.

Anonymous said...

This is music
Or this is a level back??

kikz said...

artful swallows on the wing

never doubt
the rain's eternal promise

nobody said...

thanks folks,

And what perfectly marvellous pieces from both John and Kikz. Two utterly different directions and both brilliant. John, I laughed out loud at yours.

Thanks for those tips anon. I'll give it a burl. ('burl' means what you think it does. Anyway, another listing for the lexicon).

The music I want to use is from a film. I doubt anyone here has seen it. Maybe. If you have, don't blurt it out. Anyway when I hear this piece, my head is filled with the imagery, themes and emotions of the film. And I wondered if people who hadn't seen it would arrive at similar themes etc. And if not, what would it suggest to them? Interesting experiment, no? Anyway, I'll play around with those sites and see what I can make happen.

Anonymous said...

Darting here and there
Frozen in space and time
for all to see the beauty

---------------------------

Modern photographic techniques
Shows the power
of natural flight

nobody said...

Thanks Anon!

It's a done deal. Next week we'll have some different fare. Yay! And nice haiku too.

nobody said...

And sorry Pen, in the excitement I missed you. The picture is of a welcome swallow, endemic to Australia. But really they're much like swallows everywhere. In the golden time at sunset the metallic blue on their back and the russet on their chest are really gorgeous.

Sunset is also when they're busiest since their eyes can see a different part of the colour spectrum to humans, and the bugs that they eat fluoresce in the coloured light. Interesting huh? At that time of day, out the back of my place I've often seen maybe a hundred of them flitting about. They almost resemble the swarm of bugs that they're busy eating.

Otherwise, they're sweet little birds who mate for life. They can fly, literally and metaphorically, like a blue streak. Their song is a sweet sounding twitter.

kikz said...

we usually see them at their busiest just b4 a rain :) somehow they and the bugs know when it's coming.

folklorish sayin.. swallows on the wing, the rain they bring.. :)

Anonymous said...

Flying free above,
Colours of the earth and sky
Soar on the summers's breeze

***

Not my best. But I've always loved swallows. We had nests of them in our garage when I was little - my mum would always leave the garage door open a half foot for them to swoop in and out. I don't see as many here in the city, but each year camping I am reminded how beautiful they are.

A picture reminds
Of childhood wonders abound
Nature, in her awe

hee, not so great - but who cares?

:)

~ Buffy

Penny said...

i thought it looked swallow like, some swallows we have here, year round, like purple martins, but others come just for the summer, they are smaller and they fly as you describe them. blue tops, but more yellowy undersides.
they make interesting nests underneath bridges, out of mud.

had the neatest little run in with some of these sparrows a mom and her young one.

She was so distraught as I got closer, she wanted the little one to fly to her, I stayed back and watched, She made the cutest bird noises,calls and chirps and the little one replied, looked at me, flew off the bridge, made a circle back to mother, Then they chirped happily and flew off,

Birds do that communication thing and it is so amazing to watch , I have seen Canada geese and mallard ducks do it also. Head movements, throaty sounds, etc.
Really all so amazing, at least to me and I am digressing immensely sorry..............

Of course on another note, I have had Canada geese, bare their teeth and hiss at me, and they are intimidating. Big birds, big wings.

nobody said...

happy little fellow,
perfect genius of flight.
To live such a life!

without reflection,
without existential angst,
always here and now.

nobody said...

Buff, what are you on about? I liked both of those. Actually the second is just shy of a cigar but the first one is the whole cohiba, ha ha.

Otherwise Pen, the birds you have to watch out for here are magpies and butcher birds (both related and technically a variety of shrike) which swoop in the nesting season. I recall my father bleeding profusely once when a butcher bird laid his scalp open. The secret is to avoid the tree they're nesting in. But you only know where that is, after they swoop you, ha ha.

Anonymous said...

You can avoid the shrike strike if you follow these instructions when attacked: Put one hand above your head, the other arm curve out from your body at shoulder height, stand on one leg with your foot up behind you, lean over ever so slightly and in a fairly loud voice say shoo! shoo! You then hop quickly away from the scene.
You may think I’m joking but the bird thinks your actions are so entertaining that it flies to the nearest perch, sits quietly and watches your performance until you exit his immediate area. Both you and the bird; safe at last.

nobody said...

Most excellent. May I suggest a refinement? I think it would work better with two people. Thus I would stand in the pose you suggested and you would stand behind me and pull my leg. Ha!

Otherwise having sat through endless idiot TV discussions on the best means of combatting swooping magpies, I find your suggestion as good as any. Vive l'absurdité!

kikz said...

mocking birds here in the south can get testy durin nesting season also and go on the attack.

and OMG the babies are incessant w/the never ending every 3 to 4 second 'weeeeeepz' for mama to feed them, which goes on even beyond fledge.

one bird i absolutely hate, blue jays.

they are nasty, obnoxiously screamin loud, alone or enmasse they even run the squirrels and all other birds off...rob nests not only of eggs, but will take any hatchlings they can find. i've even lost baby mourning dove to the bastards.

i take every opportunity to ping them w/my bb pistol. never kill/injure em... but wish i had the indifference to get the bb rifle aftr em... much more (air) powerful/w scope would undoubtedly make for a clean kill. i just can't do it.

nobody said...

kikz you dreadful woman ;)

Leave those blue jays alone! At least they're pretty. Otherwise, we have the equivalent here. They're grey non-descript things called noisy miners. And they're not called 'noisy' for nothing. They're also insanely aggressive in a pack fashion. I have a huge clan out back of my place and they drive out everything interesting except the aforementioned magpies and butcher birds. If I hear their attack call, I have ten seconds to get out the back before whatever-it-is-that-might-be-interesting is driven off. Gits.

But they're natives so I just shut up and wear it. The introduced pests like the asian mynahs is another story though. The only problem with the mynahs is that there aren't enough dead ones.

Anonymous said...

Your answer to that anon idiot at 11:25 AM was very clever nobody - most excellent.
Tony
re: birds
Where I live the Australian White Ibis own the town
They wander around the main street (A1), gardens and parks as casual as you like.

Anonymous said...

Thanks nobody! ;)

We've got starlings - total jerk birds. My cat eats many of them! (He also eats rabbits - which he kills). He attempted a charge at the great blue heron. He is obviously insane.

But - just the other day - I was driving along the city street and spied three enormous turkey vultures preening on someone's front porch. Amazing. I wondered where my cat was... hee hee.

~ Buffy

Penny said...

Watching swallows fly
mad roller coaster riders!
Up, down, all around



and one for my baby swallow on the bridge:

momma bird calls:fly
baby bird replies: I will try
leap and fly away

so it is hokie, but it makes me happy
:)

Penny said...

yikes, went to look at the pics of the butcherbird, magpie.
big beaks, no wonder they can maim.
it hurt my head to look at them.

nobody said...

Oh c'mon Tony,

Did you not think that that fellow was droll? I did. I merely piled in on the wave he was already riding. And otherwise god spare me those white ibises. But they're natives too. And the only reason they're in the city fishing things out of your garbage bin is because their wetlands have been destroyed. If they were in the wetlands, we'd all think they were brilliant.

And Pen, they were both cheesy and I loved both of them. The first is completely brilliant. BTW. both butcherbirds and magpies are marvellous songbirds. Believe it or not they're both beloved. Somebody described the magpie's morning song as 'gargling with liquid silver'. If you're interested you can hear both their songs here.

And for those who groove on movies there's a new flick at the cinema. It's one of my all-time faves and easily the greatest Korean monster flick ever made. Yeah yeah, I get it.

Penny said...

thanks for the link to the calls! they were marvelous, I particularly liked the butcherbirds call, fabulous.

They both sing quite a song.

you liked the rollercoaster?

it is how the swallows fly, this summer i watched a gang of them flying, all around, how they do not run into each other is beyond me.

anyway, I think they are gone now, I haven't seen any for a couple of days. We are headed for our first killing frost,that will wipe alot of the bugs out, and and I am sure the swallows know that, though I don't quite know how they do?
but, they appear to have left.