A-Z of British Wildlife in Haiku

Ill and sofa bound, I felt compelled to write the A-Z of British Wildlife in Haiku. Can you believe nobody got there first? Writing a haiku is the ultimate satisfaction for a writer with almost no attention span. You can actually finish a piece of writing in a few minutes. It might not be very good… but it will be finished. I took that satisfaction away, by needing to write 26 haikus before I felt like any of them were finished.

Some of the animals were excruciatingly hard to choose. There must be over a hundred brilliant British species that begin with the letter G. On the other side of that coin, there are no well known species beginning with X, hence Xylodromus. Here is my index of British wildlife in true haiku using the RSPB’s wonderful illustrations.

I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. I can’t take credit for the illustrations, as most of these are from the RSPB. I’d love it if you wrote your own animal haiku in the comment box below.

Teachers, use these as you wish. If you really dig them, get in touch. I am happy to speak to your class about nature writing and poetry.

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