Watch the birdie

In Competition No. 3119 you were invited to submit a poem about yellowhammers.

This sparrow-sized songbird has inspired poetry from John Clare’s lovely ‘The Yellowhammer’s Nest’ to Robert Burns’s unlovely ‘The Yellow, Yellow Yorlin’ (‘But I took her by the waist, an’ laid her down in haste/, For a’ her squakin’ an’ squalin…’)

You took up this challenge with gusto and delivered a top-notch and wide-ranging entry. The winners earn £25 each.
 

A certain subtle, govian fellow,
When asked what code name he preferred,
Chose ‘hammer’ as a striking word
Then made his point by adding ‘yellow’.
For emberiza citrinella
Was a species badly hit
When Brussels’ CAP that didn’t fit
Sabotaged the hedgerow dweller:
The drive to get far bigger yields
Made acreage easier to combine
But helped to cause a sharp decline
In birds that needed hedged-in fields.
The yellowhammer flies alone
While some birds like to flock together:
It’s glad of its distinctive feather
And sings a song that’s all its own.
W.J. Webster
 
‘A happy home of sunshine, flowers and streams,’
Wrote Clare of your abode, yet now we know
That in some grim, worst-case scenario
The poet’s words might be the stuff of dreams.
Though prey to snakes your helpless young might be
The future augurs even worse to fear
As fields are ploughed and hedgerows disappear
And meadows sink beneath a rising sea.
Yes, doom and gloom your happy home might mar,
Yet fear not yellowhammer! Cling to hope,
For one who calmly claims that he can cope
Whate’er befalls comes like a rising star
With yellow, straw-like hair and winsome charm
Who, being keen your needs to satisfy,
Would sooner choose in some damp ditch to die
Than fail to save your happy home from harm.
Alan Millard
 
O hail, blithe emberiza citrinella!
Sing, golden-throated harbinger of doom
And teach us, in the sweetest a capella,
Your amber-lighted prophecies of gloom:
‘A little bit of bread and no French cheese
And shortages of blushful Hippocrene!
Quorn? Quinoa? Avocados? Prawns? No more!’
Each warbling warning wafting on the breeze
Is waved away: ‘Worst Case is what they mean!’
But the songbird’s singing like it knows the score.