Things change, and I ruminate over them, watch them change, sometimes pretend I have some control over them. I have been through a lot in the past couple of years, but who hasn’t, really, and in any case I have reached an age where I am thoroughly not fascinated with myself. All that said, I am about to embark on an enormous change, albeit potentially a temporary one, since I am really a chicken all in all and, to be honest, if someone offered me an interesting job tomorrow I would seriously take it and give up all these silly notions of freedom and adventure and new things to see and learn.

In short, I am going on a road trip. On this trip I am going to look for birds, talk to people who work with or look at birds, and as I go along I am going to make drawings of everything. Birds, people, and places. I guess that doesn’t quite account for “everything” in my vision, but it does provide me with a focus and a starting off point. I will be blogging with alarming regularity (a big wink to anyone who still reads this blog despite the, er, dearth of posts), and will be updating via our love/hate of this century, Facebook. My Birdspot page on FB can be found here.

In sum, here are the salient points of this post:

1. It is likely that I have lost my mind. Please do anything (cross fingers, pray, whatever) to help me to avoid hitting a large mammal in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage.

2. This lovely but overpriced Manhattan studio apartment will be available as of Nov. 1. This probably should be #1, but whatever, I’m more worried about hitting a deer.

3. If you have an interesting job lurking somewhere that you think I might be perfect for, now would be a good time to pipe up. Especially if that job involves birds in Central or South America. Benefits would be a nice change, too, but perhaps I shouldn’t push it.

The image above is watercolor on paper, on a 15 x 11″ sheet, and is a study of baby shorebirds. Do you want to know what they are? Clockwise, from bottom left: American Avocet, Short-billed Dowitcher, Willet (Eastern, for those of you who are finding loads of Westerns here on the East Coast, but more on that in a future post…), and Long-billed Dowitcher. Precocial, all of them. The Short-billed had been on this planet a mere 12 hours before expiring. So much life, so little time. Detail below.

As I write this, they, the nefarious “they”, are breaking ground in the lot behind my building. I mostly spend the days of summer working in studio, insulated from heat waves and humidity, and avoiding the putrescent swirl of vapors oozing out of every nook in the city. I still love New York, I promise, and I am grateful that my studio has been blissfully (relatively) quiet and blessed with open, South views and astonishingly good light. These are things you only luck into or pay for exorbitantly in Manhattan. That open lot has been a beacon of hope, a fount of stifled dread, and a dream of wishful denial since the day I moved in. I only would have loved it more if it had been unpaved and I could have peered in for birds, bugs, and weeds. Oh well, so it goes (singsong voice, skipping off into an unknown future). Here is a toast - with tea, this time around, since I have just been awakened by the rending of concrete and earth - to change, and to riparian and boreal forests that exist someplace firmly where I am not.

Ovenbird Studies, ink and watercolor on paper, 2010

March, you cruel month, with your allusions to warmer times and intimations of brighter futures, you can not keep me down. You may keep me inside, even strand me there, but I have found a way out, despite having lost all energies for battling snow and wind chills and the desperation brought on by the paucity of all things interesting. No, Mom, I am not drinking too much. There is something about a long Northeastern winter that precludes such excesses - my wells are simply too deep for that, and those depths are scary. No, I have my own psychochemicals: a set of bird feeders, a picture window, some watercolors, and exquisite, perfectly formed Kolinsky sable brushes.

I have color back again, and have decided that other than random physical mishaps and frailty, and the occasional social gaffe, I am, for the time being, pretty much invincible. In my own head, anyway, and in a modest context, I have found a realm sublimated between a small room and a large window.

The thing is, though, that the scenarios that unfold before me through days of intense feeder gazing are not exactly idyllic. While I can easily achieve a Zen-like calm watching the flittings and the comings and goings (especially with a cup of tea and the radiator on my left), it doesn’t take much more than simple empathy to realize that birds are very serious about food in winter. The constant visits to the seed and suet are marked with frenetic energy, complex patterns of arrival, sudden emergency departures, and many, many high traffic encounters.

I have become particularly fascinated by inter-species interactions, and the ensuing hierarchies and opportunism. There is an awful lot of squabbling that goes on at a winter feeder, especially in the frenzies before a storm or after a snowfall has obliterated other food sources. Larger birds with bigger bills have the bullying advantage, obviously, and anyone with a feeder develops a snide dislike of House Sparrows, and perhaps less so but also of House Finches, with their sedentary ways at a feeder hole and their mob numbers. When the (potentially hundreds) of Common Grackles arrive, it feels almost apocalyptic. These observations are pretty basic, but ah, the subtleties around this are where things start to get really interesting.

I have to confess, I have spent much more time out in the field than at bird feeders. My own 14th floor aerie is completely unsuitable for this activity, and it took a concerted effort for me to visit one and force myself to sit still - an effort spurred largely by a commissioned drawing of said birds. Now I am completely addicted. From watching the savvy of the Black-capped Chickadees to starting to understand a larger picture of the webs of interactions across a whole day’s worth of feeding - the material is enough for a thesis, or a body of work, which is what I am doing now. Watching a White-breasted Nuthatch rear up, wings outstretched, dagger bill pulled back and pointed downward (exactly, and I mean exactly, looking like a Cobra) to fend off two idly perched House Sparrows, was like witnessing a righteous coup. The scene had seemed so innocuous - two fluffy sparrows on a branch, inching towards the feeder, one nuthatch, ahead in the line but much flightier. Then, in an incredible flash, rebellion and violence - and for once the nuthatch got to park itself at the food source.

There is so much more, in this tiny world, than meets the impatient eye. The symbiotic feeding between disparate species of birds (and the less peaceable kingdom behavior of closer competitors), and the arrival and timing patterns of different types of birds (the long swoop of the Tufted Titmouse vs. the skulking approach from the ground floor upwards of a White-throated Sparrow) are apparent to anyone who watches a feeder, or knows a little about the feeding habits of different birds. What I am floored by is the element of change and chaos in these patterns, and by the visual (visceral) reactions that I have to all of it. I now know the differences in structure and even coloration between a male and female Carolina wren, through drawing and watching. I can time an in-flight photograph (better, anyway) for different species, knowing how they tend to approach and retreat. I am insatiable for more understanding of things so seemingly insignificant.

Images, above, from top to bottom:
Carolina Wren studies, ink and watercolor on paper
Black-capped Chickadees in flight, ink and watercolor on paper
Red-bellied Woodpecker/Black-capped Chickadee, ink and watercolor on paper

Images below:
details of Carolina Wren studies

halloween sketches, scratchboard, 8 x 11″