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News · February 4, 2022

Ensorcelled

Nature can cast a spell on us and transport us to a magical world of trees and plants that host the creatures with which we share this planet. We honor all those who share their work describing in verse and portraying in their photographs these astoundingly beautiful flora and fauna.

Pine siskin at Mallard Lake, Golden Gate Park. Photo ©Bob Gunderson.
Pine siskin at El Polin Spring in the Presidio. Photo ©Bob Gunderson.
Ensorcelled 
by Lisa Owens Viani

This winter
the siskins
blew in
on the wind,
which soughed

through the orchard
soaking everything
with soft

drops.

It’s a siskin
irruption,
one more disruption 
in a world
upside down.

In late January
a flicker arrived
uttering a royal shriek!—
drilling into the siding,
darting into the owl’s box,
and proclaiming it hers:
gazing out over the meadow
with her dark eye; her breast
in its ermine vest

ringed in a black necklace,
she’s encircled in the entrance hole,
leaving us ensorcelled:

Queen of the Orchard.
 

Lisa Owens Viani is co-founder and executive director of Raptors Are the Solution (RATS).

A female northern flicker. Photo ©Dave Harper.

— Jane and Tom Kelly of Greens at Work shared Lisa Owens Viani’s poem and the accompanying photos.
February 2022

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