Diana Webb

The Ornithologist

riverside bench 
far from where it plunged 
the bird resurfaces 

I’ll never forget the Christopher Isherwood verse she taught us, starting with the words ‘The common cormorant or shag.’ My mother described her hairstyle as an Eton crop and she always arrived at school on a motor bike .

She darted from blackboard to window at the sight of the season’s first swift and took us for our annual class outing to St. James’s Park to learn the names. Pochard, Widgeon, Teal and Tufted. When we started the answer to a question with “Well. . . ,” she would say “It has nothing whatsoever to do with a well or water.” Unlike the last two lines of that memorable poem ‘That wandering bears may come with buns, And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.’

feeding the ducks —
her picture book on the plight 
of a transgender teddy

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About the Author

Diana Webb edits the Time Haiku journal and runs a haiku group in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, where she lives. She enjoys running haibun workshops.