Oh, Avellana corylus! Oh, Avellana corylus! How lovely are your branches!

Seeing the leaves of my Avellana corylus AKA Contorted Hazelnut (a shrub which grows in my rooftop garden) all covered with snow (as evidenced in the photo atop this entry) and clinging to their branches, caused me to think of the song, On Top of Spaghetti, which is associated with a nursery rhyme.

But, fortunately, unlike the doomed meatball in that nursery rhyme, I didn't lose any my shrub's leaves that were covered in snow, because NOBODY sneezed!

My Avellana corylus is an amazing shrub who is featured in a number of posts here on Blogger and is included in my first garden-themed movie, The Kiwi Speaks! Fifteen Minutes of Fame... almost. This movie can be viewed on my Vimeo channel. The Kiwi Speaks! Fifteen Minutes of Fame... almost, is also referenced in each version of Words In Our Beak Volume One (WIOB VOL ONE).

HARDCOVER

SOFTCOVER

DIGITAL

In bygone years, the Avellana corylus became a Christmas tree in my urban garden, as evidenced in the set of images below.

The first photograph in the series directly above features the way I used my Contorted Hazelnut's Christmas-tree look for a Christmas card, this was featured in a previous post here on Blogger, which you may reference by clicking here. The latter picture in this series shows a house sparrow admiring the awesome flowers that my Avellana corylus produces. A closeup of these flowers can be seen in the following pictures.

But the sparrow is not the only member of the avian community who enjoys spending time with the contorted hazel nut. Many other birds like to hang out with my Avellana corylus. 

These include Cam (my Northern cardinal who is the author of WIOB VOL ONE), male house finches, and mourning doves. A representative from each of these varieties enjoying the contorted hazelnut can be found below.

All of the aforementioned bird types are featured with great detail in WIOB VOL ONE. Other birds who have enjoyed my Avellana corylus include representatives from the families of bluejays, Baltimore orioles, Northern mockingbirds, as well as European starlings of all ages (and are pictured below respectively),

will be featured in subsequent volumes of Words In Our Beak. Stay tuned!

ADDENDUM FALL 2018: 

The digital versions of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can now be found wherever books are sold.

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

Additionally,  I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.