Hello Tweets,

The following two paragraphs are excerpted from an e-mail letter I
received on 8 July from Hugo Phillipps in Australia, who wrote me after
the WED (Wildlife Ecology Digest) list-owner had posted my announcement
about the Nature Poetry workshop to be held at Padilla Bay in August.

I've already sent Hugo a poem from the 1993-94 Padilla Bay Poets'
Anthology and am keeping my eyes open for other poems. If any of you
either write poetry about shorebirds and would be willing to share it with
Hugo, or can recommend to Hugo other sources of such poetry, please write
directly to him at the address that follows. (Actually, I would myself
enjoy reading the poems you recommend, so would you please write to me as
well?)

Thank you for your help.


"One reason I am interested in shorebird-related poetry is that it adds
another dimension to shorebird study and appreciation. We have several
local shorebird study groups that are involved in a program of banding
birds and also putting region-specific colour-flags on their legs to trace
their migration routes. Most of the migratory shorebirds of the East
Asian - Australasian - West Pacific Flyway breed in northern Asia, with a
few from Alaska, and have to pass through eastern and south-eastern Asia,
probably the fastest developing part of the world. Their precise routes
are not adequately known; many important staging areas are threatened by
industry and agriculture; and some species, such as Great Knot, are
probably being harvested by wildfowlers in China at an unsustainable rate.

"Anyway, thanks for offering to dig up more info about shorebird poetry,
and to put the word around that I am interested. You would be welcome to
suggest that people contact me directly if they wish. My own poetry is
more doggerel than real verse, and it would be good to see a wide variety
of human responses to those enigmatic creatures - shorebirds - that, in
their migrations, transcend political boundaries more than almost any
other birds."


Hugo Phillipps,
RAOU Conservation & Liaison,
Australian Bird Research Centre,
415 Riversdale Road,
Hawthorn East, VIC 3123, Australia.
Tel: +61 3 9882 2622. Fax: +61 3 9882 2677.
Email: <conservation at raou.com.au>

____________________________________________________
Lisa M. Smith, Seattle WA <subplot at u.washington.edu>