The weather was in a highly erratic mood, swinging rapidly between glorious autumn sunshine which re

The weather was in a highly erratic mood, swinging rapidly between glorious autumn sunshine which revealed a sky of a most unusual colour for the wild west coast of the Scottish Highlands, and huge sulky grey clouds which drained all the colour out of the landscape and brought yet more rain to the already sodden ground.

Algy waited patiently for one of the better moments, then hopped up into a wind-twisted silver birch tree. Although many of the trees were still green, the birches had already lost their leaves, and their delicate red-brown branches were swaying gently against the beautiful blue sky… at least until the next wave of clouds arrived.

Watching the last wee birch leaves flutter down to the ground, Algy remembered a lovely poem by Mary Oliver, who in his opinion had composed some of the most wonderful Nature poetry ever written. Opening his beak to its fullest extent, Algy recited at the top of his voice, for the benefit of any creature who might happen to be listening:

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
   how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
   nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
   the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep
   inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
   the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
   stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
   its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
   the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

[Algy is quoting the poem Song for Autumn by the 20th/21st century American poet Mary Oliver.]