Saturday, April 13, 2013

A Silly Little Rhyme

There is a bit of doggerel fixed in my head since my long-ago youth. Today it has been running through my mind. I have no idea of its origins, but it goes like this:
Spring has sprung, the grass is riz;
I wonder where the birdies is?
In truth, I don't have to wonder where the "birdies is." I know where the birdies, both the human and the avian varieties are. My house is attached to my human Birdies' home. And the avian birdies are ever present around the house. There is a flock of sparrows that dwell mostly in the big lilac bushes growing along the next door neighbor's fence, five feet from my home. They love to sit on my second-floor-level deck rail, on the backs of the deck chairs, and along the rolled up awning. They leave a LOT of evidence of their appreciation of these perching spots! (I know, I know, I have mentioned this before.) But I do enjoy watching the little birdies and I especially like hearing them.

 There's some chirping during the winter, but not a lot. When spring is in the air, however, they are bursting with song. They start announcing the coming sunrise when it looks like it's still night to the rest of us. They carol their love songs. It says that, even though there is still some snow on the ground, it really is spring. Rejoice! Hooray! The long winter is ending!

As the spring/summer seasons progress I like to just be outside, quiet myself, and listen to all the birds. We have quite a variety in the neighborhood by the time it's warm outdoors, and they make a surprising amount of racket. Did you know that doves make a different call when sitting than when flying? I didn't until recently. We humans make so much noise ourselves with our TVs, automobiles and various machines, music devices, and our own voices that it is easy to miss the conversation of the birds. But when I stop and listen I am amazed at what I hear!

The "birdies is" all around us.

(Of course, when I tried to get some bird photos this morning, none cooperated. I could hear them, and there was some flitting across the sky, but none were close enough, and you'd think they'd certainly never even thought of perching on my railing. And a little bird that lands high up in a cottonwood tree just disappears.)

2 comments:

  1. As a child, I learned it as "Spring has sprung, the grass is riz. Wonder where the flowers is?" So...where are they, anyway? Oh, yeah. Under the snow! :o)

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  2. So I did a little hunting, and supposedly it comes from an Ogden Nash poem, and it's "boidies". A rather silly poem with "birdies" spelled phonetically to mimic an accent (New York?? New England??). Here's part of the poem:

    Spring is sprung,
    the grass is riz,
    I wonder where the boidies is.
    They say the boid is on the wing.
    But that's absoid.
    The wing is on the boid.

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