Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if
lighter than air, herons seem incumbered
with too much sail for their light bodies.
The green-finch exhibits such languishing
and faltering gestures as to appear
like a wounded and dying bird.
Fernowls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk
over the tops of trees like a meteor;
starlings as it were swim along. White-throats
use odd jerks and gesticulations
over the tops of hedges and bushes,
woodpeckers fly volatu undosu,
opening and closing their wings at
every stroke, and so are always rising
or falling in curves.
(English naturalist Gilbert White, 1778)
Verbatim Poetry 