Birds

The Winding Road Comes to an End

May 04, 2018

Gentle readers, let us finish up the Birds and Blooms and Winding Roads trip with some delicious food and a visit to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens. (See part one here, part two here, and part three here.) Click on the photos if you'd like to see them bigger.


The last full day of our trip splurged on breakfast at Circa ’62 at the Inn at Schoolhouse Creek and Spa. I’m glad we didn’t stay there, because I would have found it hard to leave the property. The grounds were lovely:

Circa '62

There were chipmunks!


The food was some of the best I’ve ever eaten—we shared the hard cider French toast and the bacon and mushroom hash.

 

In addition to serving people, they are dog-friendly with a special menu just for their canine guests: the Stop, Drop & Drool menu, and there’s a special room where you can eat with your pet. (Luna would have lost her mind with joy.)


The doggy dining room
If I’m ever in the neighborhood again, you can bet I’ll try to wangle a stay there.

After we waddled walked to our car, we headed just up the road to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens: “47 acres of botanical bliss fronting the Pacific Ocean.” This garden was voted 5th best garden in the United States by USA Today’s “10 Best” Reader’s Choice Awards.

I could tell you about the blooming rhododendrons; the succulent and Mediterranean gardens; the walk by the sea where we watched in fascination as waves curled and broke, dashing themselves against rocks; the hummingbirds darting here and there...but instead I’ll let my photos show, not tell.


Enticing path

Blooming rhododendron





Tulip tree--I think it's a type of magnolia

Stalked aeonium


And so we come to the end of the Birds and Blooms and Winding Roads trip. It’s given me much happiness to relive this trip with you—thank you for joining me! I don’t know where my next everyday adventure will take me, but I’ll be sure to invite you along for the ride.

Where will your next everyday adventure take you?



Birds

Prophets of Spring

April 06, 2018

Pterzian at English Wikipedia via Wikimedia Commons

 Introduction by Ted Kooser: I can identify most of the birds that live in my part of Nebraska, but I can't tell one warbler from the next. But Kevin Cole, in his new book, Late Summer Plums, from Scurfpea Publishing, has identified a warbler for us. The archives of this column, at www.americanlifeinpoetry.org, has another of Cole's poems, about watching a deer cross the Missouri. Kevin Cole lives in South Dakota.

Audubon Warblers

The Audubon warblers keep the time of their coming,
Arriving on stillness of a storm,
Their breast and backs as dark as low bruised banks of cloud,
Rumps and throats as yellow as blooms of buckwheat.

They throng this evening in the newly-leaved
Tender-tipped canopies nervously weaving
Through the catkins like frantic prophets
Bearing some divine prophecy of the coming spring.

I wait, hoping for nothing too grave:
News of ruinous lands, of cutting and swarming locusts,
Of withering vines and empty granaries,
Of fasting, weeping, and rending of garments.

No, I wait for lighter fare:
Perhaps a promise that the green heron will nest
On the west end of the slough and that the ironweed
And wood lily will once again together bloom.

This would be an ample prophecy for another year—
This and a promise to keep the time of their coming.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Kevin L. Cole, “Audubon Warblers,” from Late Summer Plums, (Scurfpea Publishing, 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Kevin L. Cole and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2017 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Backyards

Feathered Friday--Birds at the Backyard Feeder

March 09, 2018

“I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.”
—Pete Hamill

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the backyard with you-know-who lately. While I supervise playtime (she eats, or at least chews, everything and we’ve already been to the vet once because she ate something she shouldn’t have), I have the chance to slow down, be quiet, and observe. Our yard is full of birds, some of which I’ve never noticed before. The simple pleasure of observing the birds coming and going has made my backyard jaunts happier. Today I thought I’d share a few of our pretty feathered visitors:


Rufous-sided towhee 


Red-bellied woodpecker

Catbird

Mr. Cardinal

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Bonus Butterfly:

Zebra longwing
What’s making you happy today?

Birds

The Beat of Ordinary Hours

August 30, 2017

Photo by Gary Bendig on Unsplash

Introduction by Ted Kooser: In our busy times, the briefest pause to express a little interest in the natural world is praiseworthy. Most of us spend our time thinking about other people, and scarcely any time thinking about other creatures. I recently co-edited an anthology of poems about birds, and we looked through lots of books and magazines, but here is a fine poem we missed, by Tara Bray, who lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Once

I climbed the roll of hay to watch the heron
in the pond. He waded a few steps out,
then back, thrusting his beak under water,
pulling it up empty, but only once.
Later I walked the roads for miles, certain
he’d be there when I returned. How is it for him,
day after day, his brittle legs rising
from warm green scum, his graceful neck curled,
damp in the bright heat? It’s a dull world.
Every day, the same roads, the sky,
the dust, the barn caving into itself,
the tin roof twisted and scattered in the yard.
Again, the bank covered with oxeye daisy
that turns to spiderwort, to chicory,
and at last to goldenrod. Each year, the birds—
thick in the air and darting in wild numbers—
grow quiet, the grasses thin, the light leaves
earlier each day. The heron stood
stone-still on my spot when I returned.
And then, his wings burst open, lifting the steel-
blue rhythm of his body into flight.
I touched the warm hay. Hoping for a trace
of his wild smell, I cupped my hands over
my face: nothing but the heat of fields
and skin. It wasn’t long before the world
began to breathe the beat of ordinary hours,
stretching out again beneath the sky.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2006 by Tara Bray, and reprinted from her most recent book of poems, “Mistaken for Song,” Persea Books, Inc., 2009, by permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2010 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Birds

The Unseen, Unpaid Workman

April 20, 2016


Introduction by Ted Kooser: Poetry has often served to remind us to look more closely, to see what may have been at first overlooked. Today’s poem is by Kaelum Poulson of Washington state. A middle school student and already accomplished maker of poems, he writes of the thankless toils of an unlikely but entirely necessary member of our community—the crow!

The Crow

So beautiful
but often unseen
a maid of nature
the street cleaner that’s everywhere
never thanked
never liked
always ignored
so elegant in a way no one sees
but without it we would
be in trash up to our knees
with the heart of a lion
the mind of a fox
the color of the night sky
a crow
the unpaid workman
that helps in every way
each and every day.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright © by Seattle Arts & Lectures. Reprinted from “The Universal Controversial Hive: poems, stories, & memoirs by students,” Writers in the Schools, 2006, by permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004- 2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Barbara Ellen Sorenson

Down Among the Mallards

August 26, 2015

Photo courtesy Gunter Hofer

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Several years ago, Judith Kitchen and I published an anthology of poems about birds, and since then I keep finding ones I wished we’d known about at the time. Here’s one by Barbara Ellen Sorensen, who lives in Colorado.

Pelican

Under warm New Mexico sun,
we watched the pelican place
himself down among the mallards
as if he had been there all along,
as if they were expecting the large,
cumbersome body, the ungainliness.
And he, sensing his own unsightly
appearance, tucked his head close
to his body and took on the smooth
insouciance of a swan.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Barbara Ellen Sorensen from her most recent book of poems Compositions of the Dead Playing Flutes, Able Muse Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Barbara Ellen Sorensen and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Birds

True North

November 13, 2013

Copyright Miro Schaap
Linda Pastan, who lives in Maryland, is a master of the kind of water-clear writing that enables us to see into the depths. This is a poem about migrating birds, but also about how it feels to witness the passing of another year. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

The Birds 

are heading south, pulled
by a compass in the genes.
They are not fooled
by this odd November summer,
though we stand in our doorways
wearing cotton dresses.
We are watching them

as they swoop and gather—
the shadow of wings
falls over the heart.
When they rustle among
the empty branches, the trees
must think their lost leaves
have come back.

The birds are heading south,
instinct is the oldest story.
They fly over their doubles,
the mute weathervanes,
teaching all of us
with their tailfeathers
the true north.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from The Imperfect Paradise, by Linda Pastan. Copyright © 1988 by Linda Pastan. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Ms. Pastan’s most recent book is “Queen of a Rainy Country,” W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Birds

Too Many Beaks to Fill

October 09, 2013


One of the first things an aspiring writer must learn is to pay attention, to look intently at what is going on. Here’s a good example of a poem by Gabriel Spera, a Californian, that wouldn’t have been possible without close observation. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Grubbing

The jay’s up early, and attacks the lawn
with something of that fervor and despair
of one whose keys are not where they always are,
checking the same spots over and again
till something new or overlooked appears—
an armored pillbug, or a husk of grain.
He flits with it home, where his mate beds down,
her stern tail feathers jutting from the nest
like a spoon handle from a breakfast bowl.
The quickest lover’s peck, and he’s paroled
again to stalk the sodgrass, cockheaded, obsessed.
He must get something from his selfless work—
joy, or reprieve, or a satisfying sense
of obligation dutifully dispensed.
Unless, of course, he’s just a bird, with beaks—
too many beaks—to fill, in no way possessed
of traits or demons humans might devise,
his dark not filled with could-have-beens and whys.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Gabriel Spera from his most recent book of poems, The Rigid Body, Ashland Poetry Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Gabriel Spera and the publisher.  Introduction copyright 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Birds

Happy Little Moments: Stopping to Listen

April 12, 2013



I spent a happy hour sitting on our lanai after dinner one night last week. I dipped in and out of my book, but mostly I listened to the birds, trying to identify the different species I saw and heard (I’m terrible at this but enjoy it anyway). A frog’s voice pulsed from somewhere to my left. My dog occasionally announced her presence to the world by randomly barking at nothing in particular. A squirrel jumped onto the screen enclosure with a soft thunk, a couple of people jogged by on the trail. A hawk perched on the limb of an oak, rubbing his (or her) beak against the bark. The insects began an evening chorus.

I noticed that when I stop to listen, the quiet evening is full of small clicks and chirps and rustlings. Noticing them and trying to figure out what they are gave me deep pleasure.

I’ve noticed, too, that when I slow down the pace of my everyday activities, I observe so many details I might have otherwise missed: the way the morning light glows in my bedroom when I open the blinds, the smell of brewing coffee and of the gardenias on my desk, the taste of strawberries and the spacecraft-taking-off-for-Mars clatter of the washing machine. These little details make up the real “fabric of our lives” (with apologies to the cotton industry) and too often I’m oblivious to them. I think I’ll make sitting outside after dinner a regular practice. I can always learn to listen better.

What do you notice when you listen?

Birds

Passing Through

March 20, 2013

Photo courtesy Wendy Domeni

Each of the senses has a way of evoking time and place. In this bittersweet poem by Jeffrey Harrison of Massachusetts, birdsong offers reassurance as the speaker copes with loss. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Visitation

Walking past the open window, she is surprised
by the song of the white-throated sparrow
and stops to listen. She has been thinking of
the dead ones she loves--her father who lived
over a century, and her oldest son, suddenly gone
at forty-seven--and she can't help thinking
she has called them back, that they are calling her
in the voices of these birds passing through Ohio
on their spring migration. . . because, after years
of summers in upstate New York, the white-throat
has become something like the family bird.
Her father used to stop whatever he was doing
and point out its clear, whistling song. She hears it
again: "Poor Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody."
She tries not to think, "Poor Andy," but she
has already thought it, and now she is weeping.
But then she hears another, so clear, it's as if
the bird were in the room with her, or in her head,
telling her that everything will be all right.
She cannot see them from her second-story window--
they are hidden in the new leaves of the old maple,
or behind the white blossoms of the dogwood--
but she stands and listens, knowing they will stay
for only a few days before moving on.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2006 by Jeffrey Harrison. Reprinted from Incomplete Knowledge, Four Way Books, 2006, with permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Birds

Baby Wrens

May 16, 2012

Photo courtesy lovetheson 

I’ve built many wren houses since my wife and I moved to the country 25 years ago.  It’s a good thing to do in the winter.  At one point I had so many extra that in the spring I set up at a local farmers’ market and sold them for five dollars apiece.  I say all this to assert that I am an authority at listening to the so small voices that Thomas R. Smith captures in this poem. Smith lives in Wisconsin. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Baby Wrens’ Voices

I am a student of wrens.
When the mother bird returns
to her brood, beak squirming
with winged breakfast, a shrill
clamor rises like jingling
from tiny, high-pitched bells.
Who’d have guessed such a small
house contained so many voices?
The sound they make is the pure sound
of life’s hunger. Who hangs our house
in the world’s branches, and listens
when we sing from our hunger?
Because I love best those songs
that shake the house of the singer,
I am a student of wrens.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine.  It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  Poem copyright ©2005 by Thomas R. Smith, whose most recent book of poetry is “Waking Before Dawn,” Red Dragonfly Press, 2007.  Poem reprinted from the chapbook “Kinnickinnic,” Parallel Press, 2008, by permission of Thomas R. Smith and the publisher.  The poem first appeared in “There is No Other Way to Speak,” the 2005 “winter book” of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, ed., Bill Holm.  Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation.  The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Birds

Great Blue Heron

June 29, 2011

Photo courtesy Kathy Ricca
Some of us are fortunate to find companions among the other creatures, and in this poem by T. Alan Broughton of Vermont, we sense a kind of friendship without dependency between our species and another. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Great Blue Heron
I drive past him each day in the swamp where he stands
on one leg, hunched as if dreaming of his own form
the surface reflects. Often I nearly forget to turn left,
buy fish and wine, be home in time to cook and chill.
Today the bird stays with me, as if I am moving through
the heron’s dream to share his sky or water—places
he will rise into on slow flapping wings or where
his long bill darts to catch unwary frogs. I’ve seen
his slate blue feathers lift him as dangling legs
fold back, I’ve seen him fly through the dying sun
and out again, entering night, entering my own sleep.
I only know this bird by a name we’ve wrapped him in,
and when I stand on my porch, fish in the broiler,
wine glass sweating against my palm, glint of sailboats
tacking home on dusky water, I try to imagine him
slowly descending to his nest, wise as he was
or ever will be, filling each moment with that moment’s
act or silence, and the evening folds itself around me.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by T. Alan Broughton from his most recent book of poetry, A World Remembered, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of T. Alan Broughton and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Birds

Things I Love About Florida

June 27, 2011

If I’m honest, from now until about November, I am pretty unhappy about living in Florida. Summers here are brutal—heat in the 90s with matching humidity, giving us heat index ratings in the 100s for days on end. And there are no cool mornings or evenings to offer a break—mornings and evenings may be a teeny bit cooler, yes, but just as humid which is what bothers me the most. It’s like having a hot, wet towel thrown over your head.

Anyway this post is not supposed to be a long complaint about the weather (see: title). It’s supposed to be about what I love about Florida—things I will concentrate on when the humidity makes me wish I never set foot in this state. Here are a few:

Florida skies. Whether they’re bright blue or swirled with soft-serve clouds, Florida skies are breathtaking. I moved here from Southern California, where the sky was usually a flat gray or even white with few clouds to liven up the expanse. I know there must have been plenty of blue-sky days, but they were nothing to the daily show Florida’s skies put on.


Birds. I never paid much attention to birds until I moved to Florida—but having Sandhill Cranes in your back yard will get your attention. In addition to the cranes, which raise babies all over town every year, I’ve seen pileated woodpeckers, roseate spoonbills, and great blue herons in our subdivision, along with countless other species. We have a long, rectangular retention pond not far from our house, and I keep meaning to walk down there with my camera and bird book and see how many birds I can identify. We’ve had Carolina wrens build a nest and raise a batch of babies in our garage and another at the base of a potted bougainvillea. When I walk the dog at night, sometimes I hear an owl.

Sandhill cranes (not my yard, though!)
Other wildlife. Our subdivision backs up to conservation land, so we have the occasional wild visitor. In addition to regular alligator sightings, we’ve seen deer, foxes, rabbits, gopher tortoises and bobcats in our neighborhood. Wild boars regularly wander in and sometimes have to be trapped if they begin to tear up too many yards. We’re infested with squirrels, as well as frogs, toads, skinks and (gulp!) snakes. (I could really live without the snakes, but I guess I have to accept whatever nature throws at me!) We will not discuss the abundant insect life because this is about what I LIKE about Florida…


Thunder—if I’m safely inside*. I love the rumbly, grumbly sound of rolling thunder from a summer storm. Our wimpy California storms had nothing like Florida thunder, which can sometimes shake the windows. Few things are cosier than lying in bed listening to thunder and the patter of rain drops. *Unfortunately, I’m terrified of lightning!


I know there are more things I could list that I love about Florida if I thought about it harder. Ask me again in February, and I’ll come up with a whole new list!

What are some things you love about where you live?

Birds

For the Birds

February 15, 2010

Today is the last day of the annual “Backyard Bird Count” sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, with Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada and sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited. According to the Web site, “The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event.”

This was the second year I participated, and I’ve been looking forward to doing so very much. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate, so I ended up being limited to about 20 minutes in my backyard yesterday! Even though I didn’t spend much time, I still learned some things, just like last year. (And I still might make it out one more time today.)


I was able to identify tufted titmice, a cardinal and two doves. After scrutinizing the doves with the binoculars, I realized they are mourning doves, not common ground doves as I had thought. I also saw two other little birds flitting through the yard, and while I’m not sure what they were (those buggers were quick), I think one was a Carolina wren and one was a yellow-throated warbler, both of which I’ve seen in our yard before. Other birds I saw yesterday while on a walk and not “officially counting”: vultures (circling overhead, so not sure which type), some white ibis, and what I think was a common loon. (I need a better bird book…)

I also learned, by flipping through that bird book while I was waiting for more action around the birdfeeder, that the little waterfowl I see in our retention pond are hooded mergansers. I am definitely a bird novice, and I’d never heard of these birds before! It’s so much fun to learn new things about the creatures that share my environment.

It’s not too late! You can still participate in the bird count today. (That’s right: go ahead, drop everything and go out and count birds!) Deadline for submitting your observations is March 1. (You can enter them online at http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/input. Those who submit reports will be eligible for bird-related prizes.)


Happy birding!