Tails

Tall nest tails are how manakins (blue)

Avert predators? Science says true:

It’s tall tails that preclude

Little birds getting chewed—

Sounds like telling tall tales, in my view!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly and other journals. The poem was prompted by the Science story “Fluttering ‘tails’ on bird nests confuse would-be predators Blue manakins in Brazil use ‘disruptive camouflage’ to protect their eggs, new study finds.”