Tag: bird-watching

Today I wanted to go on an adventure.

On December 29, 2022

“In the Garden
Sit Quietly in My Presence”
RND 3-28-1945 to 3-3-2018

Today’s adventure needed to happen. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to not be inside anymore. I needed to go do something out in the world and be among trees and be among birds, and just be among something different than the four walls inside of my house.

I started looking at thrift stores. I thought maybe I wanted to go have an adventure that was a treasure hunt to see what unknown and untold trinkets and treasures and items I might stumble across in my wandering’s, but as I looked around, I realize it was just another building another set of four walls. Another place the felt like my house filled and cluttered with things things I knew things I didn’t because I never would at the end. It was just more stuff.

So instead of going and standing among other things and other peoples things from other people, I decided to do what I often do and think about what I wanted to eat.

So I went to our favorite little sandwich shop and got a Susie’s special and then as I was sitting with it there in the car alongside the root beer because there’s something about adventure in repair that just go together in my heart, I remembered we have a fantastic garden near us.

You can just go for free. It’s part of our county park system. It’s something that my taxes help support and it’s just a free resource I could just go to. I can be outside among the birds in the trees and whatever plant life there is this time of year. Or just sit there and eat my sandwich and look out over the little lake so that’s exactly what I did.

I drove to Brookside Gardens and I sat in my car and I ate my sandwich, and I watched the gaggle of geese that were being fed by one of the other patrons. There were a couple of ducks and turtles that were also out, trying to sun themselves in a little bit of winter sunshine that was coming down through the cloudless sky.

I ate my sandwich and I drink my root beer and I grabbed my camera, because the proper adventure can happen in real life or can happen through a lens, because you never know what secret there are.

I saw a beautiful bird among the marsh grasses took a number of pictures of it don’t know what it is. I’ll have to get back home in consult the buckle birds to try to figure out who it was. I saw when I walked further on Pastor geese and ducks and turtles, saw some cardinals fall from chickadees and finches and then I saw a big bird.

It soared from somewhere in the distance and landed on a tree branch where your pie, but just across from the path from where I was standing. I slowly got my camera out slowly crept towards it. I did not want to disturb this magnificent beast but you can never be too careful, so slowly walked up to below, and tried to angle around to get a decent a photo for this beautiful hawk wasn’t completely obscured by all the brown brown branches it was standing in a few photos will see if they turn out to be anything in the few moments before his giant wings open. He just took one powerful flap of those wings and soared off into the distance. Out of sight.

This post was written by speaking softly into my air pods sitting on this bench at the park.

Playing a game of “What bird are you?”

By Carl

On April 30, 2022

In Observations

eBird is stumped. My best guess is some kind of gull. I walked around the block trying to get a better view but I never got a view of the head or beak. I saw it fly away and it’s…. A big white bird with dark wing tips.

Update: 05/03/2022

Fr0sty says it’s a White Hawk and it sure looks like it. I wish I had gotten a better view.

pic.twitter.com/mvswTvey9N
— Fr0sty (@Jordie_Havok) May 1, 2022

Thoughts on bird appreciating brought on by How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell

By Carl

On February 6, 2022

In Books, Observations

Reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell over the past few days took me back to both Oakland, CA and to my own backyard. The author lives in Oakland and talks about her time lingering and noticing in the Morcom Rose Garden and Lake Merritt. It is always fun to read a story where the author spends time if you happen to have spent time in the same place.

I was introduced to Lake Merritt one afternoon. Around after dropping off a bridal party to get their hair done for her friend’s wedding. Only, I had no idea how big the lake was. So when I estimated how long it would take to walk around, I fell short and ended up late to retrieve the ladies.

You see a neat lake in life and have time to kill, you park your car and go for a walk to explore the city on foot and enjoy the water birds and water humans you encounter along the way.

Granted, I’ve not lingered among those particular roses, though I’ve spent many a sun-kissed afternoon strolling through Brookside Gardens. While the author thinks of the birds as friends and greets them by species name, I do the same.

While my come to bird moment didn’t take place in full until the global pandemic, I had started identifying birds by sight and call from my own backyard feeders. I liked to know who I was hearing and who came with their entire family to my yard to pick it clean then move on.

While she greets the pelicans and egrets, I have my Mourning Doves. Birds simply too silly to take seriously with their mournful calls and absolute imposter syndrome whenever they manage to flap up to the bird feeder.

*I’m up here. I made it this far. What do I do now?*

I notice the American Robins picking through the yard for bugs once I’ve cut the grass in warmer weather. The Cardinals trying to impress the Lady Cardinals by soaring through trees as bright red flashes. The gold finches are my current favorites. They come and go so rarely. We had a neighbor with sunflowers and I would see a small flock of the birds in their yard on my daily walks past it. I made a note to plant yellow flowers this year since that’s what they seem to like.

It makes sense. Small yellow bird. Big yellow flower.

I realize by reading this book and take in her thoughts about the attention economy, my thoughts go to my feathered friends. That’s the part of the book that stuck most with me. She called the birds as who and not what. I do the same thing. I greet the birds as friends and the squirrel as on-again-off-again love affairs.

Watching and listening to the birds is peaceful. It’s calm and focusing. When you’ve absorbed in the birds, the rest of the world washes away and there’s only the many calls and flapping wings when once whooshes by your head at top speed.

Dove

By Carl

On June 16, 2020

In Observations

I noticed a small nest in the scrub trees and weeds along the fence line. I looked up at it tonight and it looked back. There was a head and neck of a bird in the nest. I think it was a dove, but it was well-hidden and hard to make out. I didn’t want to disturb it any further (as I have been removing some vines and cutting back some branches).
I told the dove I meant it to no harm and I would leave her and her eggs alone. I hope the dove hatches little baby doves. They’re such goofy, plump birds. I love watching them waddle around. They have a charm pigeons will never capture.

Dove standing on concrete path. — Dove, at attention

On Semi-professional Bird Watching

By Carl

On May 26, 2020

In Observations

I am a semi-professional bird watcher now. It started when I was working from home in my last job. But now that I am home and nowhere else I’ve been enjoying it (and them) all the more. It started with one feeder. A bright yellow feeder I could load up with seed and let the sparrows take over.

Then I got two suet feeders (once I learned what suet was). That’s when the woodpeckers started showing up. The downy woodpecker and red-bellied woodpecker take turns visiting my yard and are beautiful in their own ways. The red-bellied one is a particular treat as he’s a large bird that likes to linger and eat his fill. He’s also one of a few birds I’ve seen willing to take on a Blue Jay. Did you know Blue Jays are territorial and will fight and kill other birds? I didn’t until I witnessed one take down a little sparrow and found a Cardinal I suspect met the unkind claw of the murder bird.

The third feeder I got sticks to a window with suction cups. After some trial and error (and moving it to the second story of my house because squirrels will climb the window screens to get to it) it found a home outside my office window. I get daily visits from the downy woodpecker which is a delight. Until a family of European Starlings moved in and decided it was their. I counted as many as 4 birds crammed into the feeder and at least three young birds in the group. They were very boisterous and made their presence felt in my backyard.

I continued to be surprised and delighted by the number and type of birds my little yard is able to attract. The Mourning Doves along with the woodpeckers are my favorites. Though I am convinced all Robins need to have little top hat and monocles. They stand so tall and upright when they patrol the yard for food. They look so proper.

And doves always sound sad. If you hear a sad mournful call, you have doves nearby. I love how they waddle along living their life. Doing their own thing. They, like the Robins are ground feeders and instead of competing for the bird seed at the feeder, wait below it for the sparrows to make a huge mess when they toss it all over the place. Working smarter, not harder is the Dove way.

I can’t talk about bird feeders without mentioning squirrels. They like to crawl up to the feeder and hang from it and feast on the seed there. Recently, they’ve taken to knocking it out of the feeder and piling it up underneath in a little spot where they’ll sit and feast.

I don’t mind the squirrels so much in that they eat the feed. But they scare off all the birds at the feeders. I don’t need to look at squirrels. I can do that any time. I want to look at birds as they come and go. I haven’t gone as far as buying any feeder that claims to outsmart squirrels (because I don’t think any of them will actually work). But I do have a baffle I am going to put on the shepherd’s hook holding the seed feeder and see how it does.