Seen while walking.
Spring
Category Archives: birds
Hawkish
In the spring and summer months, we hang the hummingbird feeder from this hook outside the living room window.
Bird of the year
This entry was adapted from previously published posts.
In her paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes:
There is a game birders play on New Year’s Day called “Bird of the Year.” The very first bird you see on the first day of the new year is your theme bird for the next 365 days. It might seem a curious custom, but people who watch birds regularly are always contriving ways to keep themselves interested. This is one of those ways. You are given the possibility of creating something extraordinary — a Year of the Osprey, Year of the Pileated Woodpecker, Year of the Trumpeter Swan. This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, new bird.
Our family has played this game long enough that we needed to rework the rules a bit or risk getting the same birds again and again. And again. This year, my husband and I decided to choose the first birds we espied on our first walk of the new year. He has embraced a Year of the Canada Goose. And I? Imagine my delight when a red-tailed hawk flew across my path.
Abandoned
An oriole’s nest.
Spring
Image captured near a closed building at the Detroit Zoo.
Catching up
Recent acquisitions.
My commitment to annotating my reading list has waned primarily because enough note-taking, peripheral reading and studying, and discussion occurs in the assorted groups in which I am participating that I feel as if I’ve said what I need to say. Of course, I haven’t said it here, but music practice (1), band rehearsal (2), planning raised beds for pollinators, backyard birding (3), plus studying and reading have all conspired to keep me off the computer (except when I’m in Zoom meetings). We’ll see if I can remedy that.
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(1) My current solo piece is (still) Howard Ferguson’s Three Sketches for Flute and Piano. I’m also working on No. 15 of 18 Studies for Flute by Joachim Anderson, Op. 41, in Robert Cavally’s Melodious and Progressive Studies from Andersen, Gariboldi, Koehler, and Terschak for Flute, Book 1, and Sonata No. V (Handel) in Selected Duets for Flute, Volume II (Advanced), as well as scales, rhythmical articulation, and music for the spring concert.
(2) Yes, we joined a band of adult amateurs, who range from late beginner to early-advanced. During the 1.25-hour commute there and back, we’ve been listening to The Great Courses (TGC) on Dante’s Divine Comedy, which I’m reading for 100 Days of Dante. We’ve also been sampling TGC lectures on the bible. Neither of us has read it, cover to cover, so to address this educational gap, we’re using a reading schedule we found online, (usually) doubling the daily commitment, so that we finish this summer.
(3) For the last week or so, we’ve had a tiny flock of Common Redpolls at our feeders, a first in the eleven years at the forever home. This article shed some light on what may be going on. (Is it too much to ask that some of the sandhill cranes we’ve espied in the neighborhood stopped in our yards?)
“Bird of the Year”
Image taken in 2008.
Entry adapted from previously published posts.
In her paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes:
There is a game birders play on New Year’s Day called “Bird of the Year.” The very first bird you see on the first day of the new year is your theme bird for the next 365 days. It might seem a curious custom, but people who watch birds regularly are always contriving ways to keep themselves interested. This is one of those ways. You are given the possibility of creating something extraordinary — a Year of the Osprey, Year of the Pileated Woodpecker, Year of the Trumpeter Swan. This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, new bird.
After her breathless anticipation, Haupt espies… a European Starling, or “sky-rat.” The Year of the European Starling. Inauspicious, yes, but not without its charms, according to Haupt… and my daughter, for whom the much maligned starling was 2020’s bird of the year. (In 2021, we both saw goldfinches first.)
Tonight I will ensure that all of the feeders are topped off and that corn and nuts are scattered for the squirrels. (There are, of course, no squirrel-proof feeders, but I have learned that feed scattered away from the feeders will (mostly) keep those furry nuisances away from the birds and the more expensive seed.) What bird will 2022 bring me?
What will your bird of the year be?
A walk in the woods
By the time we finished our chores, errands, and late lunch on Saturday, it was raining steadily, so we had the two-mile loop at the state park to ourselves — unheard of on the weekend. We saw cormorants, a teal, an American coot, a great blue heron, and several sandhill cranes.
The year of the…
Image taken in 2008.
In her paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes:
There is a game birders play on New Year’s Day called “Bird of the Year.” The very first bird you see on the first day of the new year is your theme bird for the next 365 days. It might seem a curious custom, but people who watch birds regularly are always contriving ways to keep themselves interested. This is one of those ways. You are given the possibility of creating something extraordinary — a Year of the Osprey, Year of the Pileated Woodpecker, Year of the Trumpeter Swan. This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, new bird.
After her breathless anticipation, Haupt is confronted with… an European Starling, or “sky-rat.” The Year of the European Starling. Inauspicious, yes, but not without its charms, according to Haupt.
Last year, I lifted the window-hanging while still curled in bed and saw a female Northern Cardinal at one of the feeders. This year, I awoke to the sound of house sparrows in the bushes beneath my bedroom window. The window-hanging was slightly raised, so, to avoid seeing them, I squeezed my eyes shut, rolled to the other side of the bed, and went back to sleep. I admit: Yes, I’d like a crow or a blue jay. Is that too much to ask? Later, when I finally walked out into the living room, three cardinals, a house finch, and several dark-eyed juncos were at the feeding station, but what did I see first?
House sparrows.
Happy holidays
Christmas. Not my favorite. Never has been. Never will be. And for a while there… well, it appalled me.
When we adopted Rosemary in June 2014, it became clear in only a few days that she was one “crazy cat.” As the winter holiday approached, I cautioned that a tree might throw our somewhat calmed kitty back into a frenzy. My daughters reluctantly agreed, and I? Well, I thanked the universe for my offbeat new pet.
In the intervening 4.5 years, Rosemary has mellowed, so I guess I wasn’t surprised when my older daughter gently pined for a little tree this year. I’ve never been able to resist trying to grant my children’s wishes, which are usually so modest and doable; I love making them smile. So, about the tree in my house, I will say this: It made her happy, and when it comes down tomorrow morning, it will make me happy, too.
Nerdishly 