FROM FIELD NOTES (poem) - Andy Brown - United Kingdom - Poetry International
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FROM FIELD NOTES
Towards the river’s seaward turn the flow is slow, meandering. Wide tidal flats at the sea’s low tide support a spread of hungry birds. Silt brought down from inland fans the delta, between the reeds. Here molluscs & crustaceans breed. To the eyes of walkers on sterile dunes, where only the lonely skylark nests in monotonous marram & shifting sand, the estuarine mud-flats seem a bland expanse. But to hungry oystercatchers the casts of worms & clams are treasured finds. They stun their prey with single stabs. Shell duck, eider & avocets scythe the rich mud. Glutted, they roost inland, waiting for the sea to ebb. Knot flock in thousands where the eel-grass Zostera grows. Duck, Dunlin & Brent Geese gather. I note these quietly in my field book…