Chestnut -Collared Longspur (Draw a Bird Day)

boundless blue, rimmed by
far horizons–an ocean
of windswept grass—wings
rise above the waves,
singing in constellations
of sky-feathered light

My choka envisions the American prairie as it once was–a diverse grassland ecosystem ideally suited to its variable climate, supporting hundreds of species, including migratory ones like monarchs. Less than one percent of the original prairie remains, its deep rooted grasses and wildflowers–as many as 200 different species per acre–replaced by suburban lawns and huge farms that grow only a few different crops, crops that lack the ability to replenish the soil and protect against drought. You only need to read about the Dust Bowl to see the results of destroying the native ecology.

Species that have mostly disappeared from the American prairie include bison, foxes, ferrets, elk, wolves, pumas, grizzly bears, beavers, prairie dogs, numerous insects, and all kinds of birds–prairie birds have suffered greater population losses than any bird group in North America.

The chestnut-collared longspur, like many prairie birds, eats seeds from native plants, and walks or runs along the ground to flush and capture insects to eat as well. It particularly like grasshoppers. Its name comes from the extra-long hind claws which help to navigate the uneven ground. Longspurs spend the summer in the northern prairies of the United States and Canada, and winter in southwest grasslands in the US and Mexico.

Curlew (Draw a Bird Day)

the small is mirrored
in the large, and what appears,
surprises—the same,

but filtered by air,
particles of refracted
light, pixelated

into fragments, in
to a gridlike layer of
illusion—the eyes

are fooled at first, but
the voice, immediately
recognizable,

permeates, revealing the
inside of the Other Side

I recently finished Ali Smith’s “Companion Piece”, a book in which the curlew has a large role. “It’s flesh, everyone knows, is pure and clean because this bird is known to eat nothing but air and is also known to be a bird that comes as a gift from God to befriend the pilgrims and it exists, the story goes, to weld the heaven to the earth.”

“The stories say it is a bird that likes books and even brings them in its beak to saints if the saints have dropped their holy books in water and they need retrieving or if the saints are short of something to say to people then this bird will be the messenger that brings them books full of things God would like them to say.”

The curlew is strongly associated with the Seven Whistlers, birdlike night creatures whose eerie call is said to bring on death and disaster. But it is also seen in a more positive light as an intimate part of its landscape–moors, bogs, and river valleys, the windswept winter coastline.

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,
Hearing the horizons endure.
–Ted Hughes

Five of the eight species of curlews are endangered, with two–the Eskimo Curlew, and the Slender-Billed Curlew–most likely already extinct. A migratory bird, they are found throughout the world. Their vocalizations are filled with complex harmonics and pitch variations.

Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry,
Under the conceiving moon, on the high chalk hill
–Dylan Thomas

Sometimes my research on the bird I choose to draw yields little information, but the curlew is so well-represented in poetry, music, nature writing, and folklore, that I could not begin to touch on even a small piece of it in one post.

If you want to find out more, here are a few good places to start:

https://www.curlewsoundsproject.org/curlewsinculture

About Curlews

Red Knot/Moonbird (Draw a Bird Day)

Birds need no maps of the earth,
no compass to locate the forces
that pull and repel.
Their geography is larger
than what can be painted, written down.
Their landscape is contained inside
their very bones,
invisible roots woven through
the air.

Birds move on currents
of sun sky wind and water–
alert to the pauses,
the imperfections
in the movement of the light.
They hear the world
as it slumbers, as it awakens,
as it waits.
They have no need to build bridges
for crossing over.

Birds don’t need to mark their path,
to provide proof
of their connection to the cosmos
with signs or constructs.
Who they are
is part of their being.
The way is within
the first cell of
the first song of
the first particle of
dust from the first star.

I recently read an article about the red knot B95, nicknamed Moonbird. B95 is a banded bird that was both trapped and photographed through 20 years of migration between the tip of South America, where it winters, and the Arctic, where it summers and breeds, a distance of 9000 miles each way. B95 traveled enough miles to go to the moon and most of the way back–hence, Moonbird.

Considering the fact that one half of juvenile red knots dies during their first year’s mirgration, that is quite an accomplishment.

Red knots are robin-sized shore birds that have greyish feathers during their southern winters, but grow red feathers for the summer layover in the Arctic. As recently as 1995 there were over 150,000 red knots making the north-south-north trip, but half of the adult red knot population died between 2000-2002 due to climate change and human intrusions on their habitat. Of particular concern was the reduction of the horseshoe crab population in the tidal waters of the Delaware Bay, an important last feeding stopover before the final flight to the Arctic. Red knots time their migrations to coincide with the yearly egg-laying of horseshoe crabs, feeding on the eggs laid on the beaches. Horseshoe crabs are important to many other species in the bay as well, and scientists are working to restore this vital component of the ecosystem, which was dying due to overfishing and overdevelopment.

Red knots fly in acrobatic groups and perform evasive movements in unison meant to confuse predators like hawks. How do they “know” where to go? One theory is that they have an internal genetic flight map, but they are also known to respond to the position of the sun and the movements of the stars as they often fly all night. Red knots may also recognize both landmarks and magnetic fields. No wonder they have been called “a flying compass”

Moonbird was last spotted in 2014, 19 years after he was first caught and banded.

Red knots were the first bird ever listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Loggerhead Shrike: Draw a Bird Day

butcherbird–
we find your habits
distasteful–
twisting necks,
impaling your prey on thorns–
killing to survive

preferring
our own destructive
impulses–
too often
disconnected from earth–
we pull life apart

The Loggerhead Shrike, also known as butcherbird or thornbird, is a medium sized songbird that acts like a raptor.  With a short hooked beak, but lacking the talons of a true bird of prey, it hunts in similar ways, diving from an elevated perch or hovering and flushing its victims.  It then impales its food on thorns or barbed wire.  It can kill prey larger than itself by spearing the head or neck and twisting at a very high speed.  Sounds gruesome, no?  And many of the reference photos I looked at showed it either consuming or impaling its next meal–amphibians, insects, lizards, small mammals, small birds.

But it’s part of the food chain.  And that’s how it obtains it’s food.

Loggerhead Shrikes, like many birds, have become endangered as their North American habitats shrink or are destroyed.  Climate change and pesticides have also caused populations to decline.

How did I post this?  Several people suggested going into the WP Administration page where you can do a normal post without dealing with the blocks.  I looked at the block again briefly, but without success.

Still in the midst of moving, but should be back posting (as long as I can do it this way) in a couple weeks.

Draw-A-Bird Day 8/8/18

Not only did Kerfe’s post inspire me, I downright copied her.

I do love owls. Here is a cute one that is now extinct.

The most famous extinct bird of all: the Dodo.

Happy 🦅 day.

Draw a Bird Day: Pinto’s Spinetail

Pinto’s Spinetail is an endangered bird that hives in subtropical forest and shrubland in NE Brazil.  Just 2% of native forest remains in this area, and less than 1000 of these birds are currently surviving.  They mate for life, and my favorite fact about them is that “pairs sing in duets to defend their nesting territories”, according to abcbirds.org.

see the forest
as quiet as
no air

listen

song has wandered
away

This painting is an experiment for me–I’ve been inspired by how Claudia McGill takes the world and simplifies it into color and shape, and this is my first attempt to imitate her approach.  Although she likes to use her paints straight out of the tube, I have to admit I mixed the bird feather color, not having a tube of gouache even close to the right tone.  It felt like painting in layers, and I do like layering.  Although I have a long way to go to reach Claudia’s grasp of the essential shapes of things…

And the Oracle was insightful, as always.

On my way to the beach (although the forecast is for a rainy week).  Nina has promised to keep you entertained while I’m away.

 

Parrot (Draw a Bird Day)

Parroting

Language becoming
noise words without meaning
footnotes to the air

Answers taken given
traded for babble

Particles of lies shared
on repeat screeching
chaos manifested

I meant to write a quadrille (44 words) with the secret keeper’s words this week, but I wasn’t paying attention really, and the “6-5-6-5-6-5-6-5” I wrote down beside each line became syllables instead of words.  I also meant it to be more about the birds. I used all the words though!

Now to the subject at hand:  The parrot is painted with the new gouache I got for Christmas.  I wanted to do something bright and colorful to start, and a parrot seemed the perfect subject.

Parrots are symbolically associated with voices, words, communication, and the power of truth.  They do not keep secrets.  They are also linked to color magic.  And, like many birds, they serve as messengers between heaven and earth.

They are also endangered, due to habitat loss and the pet trade.  These intelligent sub-tropical birds can live 80-100 years; a pet parrot is a lifetime investment, requiring enormous amounts of attention, care, and intellectual stimulation to thrive.  Needless to say, both birds and humans are better served by leaving these social animals in their natural habitats, and protecting those habitats.

Haiku and Bat

from inside the earth
rebirth  transitioning  death
answers with echoes

It’s Bat Appreciation Day…a reminder of how vital they are to ecosystems everywhere.  Insect control, pollination, and seed dispersal are all important ways that bats help keep the earth in balance.  Many bat populations are endangered for the usual reasons:  habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting, disease, use of chemicals.

Bats play an important part in story and myth as well.  Because they often live in caves and come out at dusk, bats are associated with the ambiguity of night.  Western culture tends to give bats an evil shading (think vampires and the wings of devils), but many Asian and Native American cultures associate them with good luck.

Today also marks the celebration of Haiku Poetry Day.  How do I know this?  Charlie at Doodlewash is sponsoring a month of celebratory days, and he made sure I knew about Haiku Poetry Day for NaPoWriMo.

You can see previous bat posts here and here.
And learn more about bats and bat conservation efforts here.

More Turtles (or are they tortoises?)

I’ve painted sea turtles before, when I was doing endangered species on a regular basis.  It bears repeating that nearly all sea turtles are endangered.  Habitat destruction, particularly of coastal nesting sites, and poaching for eggs, meat, skin and shells all contribute to species loss, but one of the biggest problems is that they get caught in fishing nets.  To save sea turtles and the ocean ecosystem they are part of will require global cooperation.

Turtles generally spend most of their time in water, while tortoises reside on land, so why are box turtles not called box tortoises?  Sometimes they are, in fact, but they actually belong to the pond turtle family, so the turtle label is also appropriate.  They are the state reptiles of North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kansas.  Populations are declining everywhere due to (surprise!) habitat destruction and fragmentation, but they are particularly endangered in Asia, due to their use in traditional medicine, and the pet trade.

And terrapins?  They tend to live in swampy areas, equally at home in water and on land.

Nina and I have done a number of turtle posts.  With more coming, I’m sure.

You can read more about endangered turtles here.

National Bird Day

Last February I posted about the wonderful bird paintings showing up in my neighborhood.  At the time, the man behind the project, Avi Gitler, told me to watch for more birds.  Wow!  He wasn’t thinking small.

Imagine my surprise when I walked over to Amsterdam Avenue a few months ago and saw…an entire building filled with birds (and James Audubon too!).  This beautiful mural, “Endangered Harlem” was painted by a young artist from Baltimore, Gaia.

At the corner of 155th Street and Broadway are two murals, flanking the gas station there.  “Fish Crow”, by Italian artist Hitnes, is also part of a project he did where he created 15 bird murals following Audubon’s journey across the United States.  You can read about this project and see more of the murals here.

The other mural on this corner, “Swallow Tailed Kite (and others)” was painted by the Ecuadorian-American artist Lunar New Year.  You can see more of his wonderful work on his website here.

Read more about the Audubon Mural Project and all the endangered species represented in the murals on the Audubon website. (http://www.audubon.org/)

…and Happy National Bird Day!  Let’s all work to help save these beautiful creatures from extinction.

And don’t forget Draw-a-Bird Day, the 8th of each month, is coming up again on Friday!