"Two birds disputed about a kernel, when a third swooped down and carried it off."
- Proverb from the Congo
"A crow
Perched on a withered
tree
In the autumn evening."
- Basho
"Sweet bird! thy bow'r is ever
green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
thou has't no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year."
- John Logan
"I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder
for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn."
- Henry David Thoreau
"The bird of paradise alights only
upon the hand that does not grasp."
- John Berry
"Today I am sure no one needs to be
told that the more birds
a yard can support, the fewer insects there will be to trouble
the gardener the following year."
- Thalassa Cruso
"Keep a green tree in your heart and
perhaps a singing bird will come."
- Chinese Proverb
"I value my
garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give
them fruit for their songs."
- Joseph Addison
"There is nothing in which the birds
differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before."
- Robert Lynd
"Perhaps it was Maggie, perhaps not.
In solitary moments magpies
will perch on a branch and mutter soft soliloquies of whines and
squeals and chatterings, oblivious to what goes on around them.
It is one of those things, I suppose, intelligence now and then does,
must in fact now and then do, must think, must play, must imagine,
must talk to itself. ... What, finally, intelligence could be for:
finding your way back."
- Stanley Crawford, A Garlic Testament, p. 86.
"Let the farmer remember that every
bird destroyed, and every nest robbed, is equivalent to a definite increase in insects with which he already has to struggle. He will soon appreciate the fact that he has a personal interest, and a strong one, in the preservation of birds."
- Henry Oldys
"Be grateful for luck. Pay the
thunder no mind - listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody."
- Eubie Blake
"Spring would not be spring
without bird songs."
- Francis M. Chapman
"I sincerely congratulate you on the
arrival of the mockingbird. Learn all the children to venerate it as a superior being in the form of a bird, or as a being which will haunt them if any harm is done to itself or its eggs."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I hope you love birds too. It
is economical. It saves going to heaven."
- Emily Dickinson
"At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply."
- Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,
1923
"Coexistence ... what the farmer does
with the turkey - until Thanksgiving."
- Mike Connolly
"A Robin Redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage."
- William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
One swallow does not make a summer.
"To me, the garden is a doorway to
other worlds; one of them, of course, is the world of birds. The garden is their dinner table, bursting with bugs and worms and succulent berries."
- Anne Raver
"A bird in the hand is a certainty,
but a bird in the bush may sing."
- Bret Harte
"Poor indeed is the garden in which
birds find no homes."
- Abram L. Urban
"There are 8,600 species of birds in
the world today. They are
found everywhere. Birds play a vital role in the balance of nature.
They eat insects, pests and small animals. Fruit eating birds are
best for scattering seeds for these plants. Seed eating birds
digest seeds and in so doing keep millions of weeds from the earth..." Birds have between 1,000 and 25,000 feathers.
- Birds, U.C. Davis
"There was a handsome male mockingbird that sang his heart out every morning during the nesting season from the top of a tall Norfolk Pine tree. Last week the tree was cut down. The mockingbird and his song are gone. I can't put a dollar value on the tree nor on the mockingbird nor on his song. But I know that I - and our whole neighborhood - have suffered a loss. I wouldn't know how to count it in dollars."
"The sound of birds stops the noise
in my mind."
- Carly Simon
"Over the glittering, rattled ladders of
shale
the birds cross, tangential to the sea at night.
Hour upon hour you can sense the undulation of wings. If you lift your cheek quite carefully
you can feel the kiss and the wisp of air
stirred by the inaudible glide."
- Jan Haag, Birds Migrate at Night
"That little bird has chosen his shelter. Above it are the stars and the
deep heaven of worlds. Yet he is rocking himself to sleep without caring
for tomorrow's lodging, calmly clinging to his little twig, and leaving God to
think for him."
- Martin Luther
"Two birds fly past.
They are needed somewhere."
- Robert Bly
Which
came first the
chicken or the egg?
Chickens and eggs always
exist at the same time. Don't
count your eggs before they hatch.
In the middle of the pecking order.
He had something to crow about.
My allowance is chicken feed.
A deadly game of chicken.
Don't get your hackles up.
She's like a mother hen.
He is a chicken.
Chickens.
Eggs.
"There are two lasting bequests we can
give our children: one is roots. The other is wings."
- Hodding Carter, Jr.
"It is one of the first days
of Spring, and I sit once more in the old garden
where I hear no faintest echo of the obscene rumbling of London streets
which are yet so little away. Here the only movement I am conscious of
is that of the trees shooting forth their first sprays of bright green, and
of the tulips expanding the radiant beauty of their flaming globes, and the
only sound I hear is the blackbird's song -- the liquid
softly gurgling notes
that seem to well up spontaneously from an infinite joy, an infinite peace,
at the heart of nature and bring a message not from some remote Heaven of the Sky or Future, but the Heaven that is Here, beneath our feet, even
beneath the exquisite texture of our own skins, the joy, the peace, at
the Heart of the Mystery which is Man. For man alone can hear the
Revelation that lies in the blackbird's song."
- Havelock Ellis, Impressions and
Comments, 1918
blue oaks
leafed out -
robins back
- Mike Garofalo, Cuttings
"Any woodthrush shows it - he sings,
not to fill the world, but because he is filled."
- Jane Hirshfield, The Stone of Heaven
Coming, going, the waterfowl
Leaves not a trace,
Nor does it need a guide.
- Dogen, Zen Poems of China and Japan,
Lucien Stryk, p. 123
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all."
- Emily Dickenson
"Gentle day's flower -
The hummingbird competes
With the stillness of the air."
- Chogyam Trungpa
|
Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores |
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| January | April | July | October |
| February | May | August | November |
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"Spirituality is like a bird:
If you hold it too closely, it chokes,
And if you hold it too loosely, it escapes."
- Israel Salanter Lipkin
"The inner - what
is it?
if not intensified sky,
hurled through with birds
and deep with
the winds of homecoming."
- Rainer Marie Rilke
Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays, by Candace Savage, 1997.
Caw of the Wild: Observations from the Secret World of Crows, by Barb Kirpluk, 2005.
"some delight through song
others with showy plumage
the hummer, with flight."
- Jay Neville
"You are the miracle bird,
Risen
From the memory
Of the Sun's Womb
In the heart of the Earth.
Flutter,
flutter on,
my heart."
- Mahmud Kianush,
Of Birds and Men
"What is joy?
It is a bird
That we all want to catch.
It is the same bird
That we all love to see flying"
- Sri Chinmoy
Recommended Reading
The
Backyard Bird Feeder's Bible: The A-to-Z Guide To Feeders, Seed Mixes, Projects,
And Treats (Rodale Organic Gardening Book), by Sally Roth, 2003.
Backyard Bird Secrets for Every Season: Attract a Variety of Nesting, Feeding,
and Singing Birds Year-Round, by Sally Roth, 2009.
Backyard Nature Specialist:
Birds
Bird
Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays, by
Candace Savage, 1997.
Birding
Stories, Poems, Art Indexed by Christine Tarski.
Bird
Poetry - Black Hills Audobon Society
Birds - A Net
Resource Guide from Net Vet Zoo Resources
Caw of
the Wild: Observations from the Secret World of Crows, by
Barb Kirpluk,
2005.
Crow
Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness, by
Lyanda Lynn Haupt, 2009.
Crows! Strange and Wonderful, by
Laurence Pringle, 2010.
Doves
(Complete Pet Owner's Manual), by
Gayle A. Soucek, 2006.
An E-Anthology of
Avian Poetry
Electronic
Resources on Ornithology
Geese: Our home in Red Bluff, California, is in the North
Sacramento Valley. During
the winter months many thousands of ducks and geese come to this valley
from Canada and Alaska. Wild
Goose Qigong Wild
Geese Posters
How to Tell
the Birds from the Flowers. Text of 1907 illustrated verse by Robert W. Wood.
A Hummingbird in My House: The Story of Squeak, by
Arnette Heidcamp, 1991.
In the
Company of Crows and Ravens, by
John M. Marzluff, 2007.
Magpie
The Western Yellow Billed Magpie, Pica Nutalli
A
study by Mike Garofalo.
The
Mockingbird (Corrie Herring Hooks Series), by Robin
W. Doughty, 1995.
Northern Cardinal (Wild Bird Guides), by
Gary Ritchison,
1997.
Ringneck Doves: A Handbook of Care and Breeding, by K. Wade Oliver, 2005.
That
Quail, Robert, by Margaret Stanger, 1992.
Wildlife in the Garden, Expanded Edition: How to Live in Harmony with Deer,
Raccoons, Rabbits, Crows, and Other Pesky Creatures, by Gene Logsdon, 1999.
Your
Chickens: A Kid's Guide to Raising and Showing by Gail Damerow, 1993.
The Spirit of Gardening
Website
Over 3,800 Quotations, Poems, Sayings, Quips, One-Liners, Clichés, Quotes, and
Insights
Arranged by Over 250 Topics
Over 15 Megabytes of Text
Over 21 Million Webpages (excluding graphics) Served to Readers Around the World
From January 1, 1999 through March 1, 2011
This webpage has been online since March 2001
Compiled by Karen Garofalo
and Mike Garofalo from Red
Bluff, California
E-Mail
Last Updated: March 1, 2011