Antranik Tchalekian of Toronto, Ontario, asks,
“Hello from Toronto, Nick! I've been drawing birds lately, mostly with ink and oil pastels; so far I've tried out a robin, a red-winged blackbird, a cardinal, a goldfinch, and a grackle. Do you have a favourite bird, or birds? Thanks again!”
Thank you very kindly, Antranik, for your question.
That’s a great selection of birds you have attempted so far. The Red-Winged Blackbird is beloved among my family in Illinois, and the Northern Cardinal is of course, our state bird: pleasant to see flitting about in a shrub, despite being only medium at baseball.
My Mom and Dad maintain a generous buffet of bird feeders in the backyard, which require an elaborate combination of defensive accessories to protect the birdseed and suet from the incorrigible squirrels. Despite my Dad’s unceasing vigilance, he said, “Twice I saw one on the old red feeder, but not sure how it got on there.” They’re goddamn good at what they do, Dad, that’s how.
My folks and their bird feeders attract a hell of a turnout, and enjoy all their winged visitors, but their favorites are wrens, cardinals, blue jays, orioles, nuthatches, and chickadees.
In the last couple decades, I’ve personally had a lot of run-ins with grackles in Austin and seen Stellar’s Jays up in Northern California that left me with a begrudging sense of admiration for their (ironically) unflappable scavenging skills. Those two species will steal the very R&P out of your GORP.
I can also always sit and watch a pelican—or an entire squadron of them—fishing along the California coast. Their ability to circle high in the salty breeze, ever scrutinizing the hunting waters below, until they silently dive-bomb their prodigious beaks into service, snatching the unsuspecting fish that is fated to become their dinner, is incredible to behold.
Thanks to the pandemic, I finally started to take note of the multitudinous species visiting the stone fountain in our yard that doubles as a fully Mediterranean spa experience for the little birds. Utilizing a phone app, I was able to identify a couple dozen colorful visitors, with some favorites being the Wilson’s Warbler, the Hooded Oriole, and an Anna’s Hummingbird.
Down the road a spell I caught a few brief sightings of a Cooper’s Hawk, which was terrifically exciting, in addition to the enormous ravens and numerous Red-Tailed Hawks that populate Los Angeles. I guess that, thanks to my parents, I’ve always tended to look about me and see what birds (and other critters) I can spot, and now I really enjoy knowing a lot of their names as well.
That said, my favorite bird is a pair of them. We are powerfully blessed to have a pair of Great Horned Owls in our neighborhood, and we hear them hooting damn near every night. Sometimes their calls are distant, sometimes closer at hand, and sometimes they exchange hoots over long distances.
Nothing can compare, however, to the nights when they perch on or about our house. We can actually feel the reverberations of their calls lightly vibrating the windows. On occasion, we sneak outside as quietly as possible and catch a peek of their silhouettes against the moonlight sky, but I’ve never been able to snap a satisfactory photo of their enormous shapes. I’m estimating their size at 20-22” tall when seated, and please remember I’m pretty decent with a tape measure. These babies are enormous in both stature and spirit, as they loom even more expansive in our mind’s eyes.
Leave it to my bride then, the house hero, to win the day—or night, as it were. I was already asleep because my glass of warm milk had kicked in when she physically felt one of the owls land on the corner of the bedroom roof. A bit alarmed at the quake, she tiptoed outside and was able to snap this amazing shot:
Powwows.com tells me that the Cherokee, Lakota, and other Indigenous Peoples ascribed powerful significance to the Great Horned Owl.
The holy people among the tribes believed that the owl had very soft and gentle ways, similar to the softness of an owl's feather, and these ways were taught to them in the healing ways.
Therefore, whenever owl feathers were worn by an individual, it often meant that they were a medicine person with healing abilities.
Other traditions colored the owls with darker meanings, but I’m going to stick with the benevolent interpretation, in the hopes that our local owl couple isn’t watching The Staircase on HBO with us through the window. If you’re unfamiliar, you’re missing out: it’s astonishing work from Colin Firth, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Parker Posey and the rest of the cast and creative team (based on the fantastic French docu-series of the same title), and you’ll be utterly sated once you arrive at a part of the story involving an alleged owl.
Looking at this photo below, I can’t help but wonder if one of our winged community sentinels did, in fact, have some sort of witching influence over me, possessing me to wield a mustache thick as night feathers; to portray a sturdy Hoosier and assume a stoic steadfastness commensurate with this absolute edifice; the Witching Hour Watcher:
Antranik, thanks again for this great reminder to pay attention to the small delights around us every day, available for free, even. I got to help work on a documentary that’s partly about this very idea, entitled Look and See, in which my friends in the Berry family elaborate on this simple notion as the foundation for a healthy way of life that is even more sustainable than rampant consumerism.
Love,
Muleteers, thanks very much if you have made it this far. Thursday fodder is free, but if you want to plow the entire field, as they say, then please consider becoming a subscriber. Either way, I wish you well.
Ron Swanson or Woodsy?