Birds

“And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon.”

― Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussycat

European Goldfinch

Carduelis carduelis

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream until the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun’s rays and dares to claim the sky.

– Maja Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

“The rose petal floats on water. The kingfisher flashes above the pond. Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death.”

― Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World

Greater Spotted Woodpecker

Dendrocopos major

'The single egg, in the dark blue egg cup with a gold ring round the top, was boiled for three and a third minutes. It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg from French Marans hens owned by some friend of May in the country.'

― Ian Fleming, From Russia With Love

The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off – and they are nearly always doing it.

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all”

― Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

"A flock of flirting flamingos is pure, passionate, pink pandemonium-a frenetic flamingle-mangle-a discordant discotheque of delirious dancing, flamboyant feathers, and flamingo lingo."

- Charley Harper