Winter Birds

The windchimes on the birdfeeder work great: no squirrels but plenty of birds. I love seeing their tiny footprints in the snow beneath the feeder. Worrying about the winter birds recalled to mind a song that I'd heard by Loreena McKennitt back in the 90s. Turns out it's a traditional Irish song:

Oh, Bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see

Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree

For it stood on your shore for many's the long day

'Til the long boats from Antrim came to float it away

Oh, Bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand

And the more I think on you, the more I think long

If I had you now as I had once before

All the Lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep

Saying, "Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?"

For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down

And the walls of Bonny Portmore are all down to the ground