The Dewdrop World

Meanderings through the seasons...

LA Arboretum June 2021

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Today we saw more Great Horned owls--two juveniles. Probably the babies of the mom we saw three weeks ago...

The highlight was seeing the Pin-Tailed Wydah. A bird found in Africa, it was a stunner!! Look at how he dances...

These birds are also brood parasites (speaking of which, we saw a cowbird that was getting fed by a song sparrow down by the lake in the Arboretum this morning (pics below)... first time to see the cowbirds working a song sparrow. Tracey saw one being fed by a junco. Sheesh. 


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American Robin above
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Allen Hummingbird
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Cowbird working it

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King of the Birds--Out my Window July 2, 2021

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The Call of the Curlew (June 2021)

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"Of all bird songs or sounds known to me, there is none that I would prefer than the spring notes of the curlew . . . The notes do not sound passionate; they suggests peace, rest, healing joy, an assurance of happiness past, present and to come. To listen to curlews on a bright, clear April day, with the fullness of spring still in anticipation, is one of the best experiences that a lover of birds can have.” Edward Grey in the Charm of Birds

I did not know that curlews were famous for their haunting, lonely cries at night. And I did not know the important place they have in the British poetic mind. From mournful to ominous?  The two most often noted sounds of their call are the “curlee, curlee,” from which it gets it name, and the hauntingly beautiful call heard most often in the breeding season – a bubbling crescendo that ends in a long note. It inspired Yeats to write of lost love.
O CURLEW, cry no more in the air,
Or only to the water in the West;
Because your crying brings to my mind
passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair
That was shaken out over my breast:
There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

Listen here.

Alex Preston, in his book As Kingfishers Catch Fire, writes:

TWO OF THE THREE or four Western avian extinctions since the Great Auk in 1852 were curlews. Fred Bosworth’s 1955 novel, Last of the Curlews, is written from the perspective of the final remaining eskimo curlew on earth as he undertakes his migration from the Canadian Arctic to the Pampas of Patagonia. Bosworth does his best not to anthropomorphise the bird, but the passages in which the curlew briefly meets and then loses his mate, as they fly over the Andes and up across the plains of the Midwest, are a kind of tragic road- trip, the birds’ fragile, wind-buffeted union beautiful and doomed. Equally powerful is Horatio Clare’s Orison for a Curlew, which sees the author set off on a hopeless quest in search of the slender-billed curlew. 1 This slim book, written in lapidary prose, chases the ghost of the vanished bird ‘of delicate appearance and mysterious habits’ through Greece and the Balkans, with Clare speaking to ornithologists and environmentalists whose valiant actions were too little, too late. It seems fitting, somehow, that the melancholy curlew, whose eldritch cry has stirred fear and sown sorrow over the centuries, should be amongst the avant garde of the great Holocene extinction event, its sad call an unheeded warning of the wave of extinctions to come. In the Old English poem ‘The Seafarer’, written deep in the Dark Ages, the anonymous author looks back on his life amid waves and sea-birds, driving the ‘foam-furrow’ far from home. The poet is an outsider, frozen and friendless, exiled to roam the icy and unforgiving oceans. The curlew is the spirit bird of the poem, its long sorrowful call lilting down through the wretched lines: 2 Hwilum ylfete song At times the swan’s song dyde ic me to gomene, I took to myself as pleasure, ganotes hleoþor the gannet’s noise ond huilpan sweg and the voice of the curlew fore hleahtor wera, instead of the laughter of men, mæw singende the singing gull fore medodrince. instead of the drinking of mead. The curlew is a bird of desolate places, of moors and bleak estuaries, of winter dusk and dreich weather. W.H. Hudson describes the call, which is a rising and desperate one, as ‘uttered by some filmy being, half spirit and half bird.’ Dylan Thomas addresses a herd ‘Ho, hullabulloing clan / Agape, with woe / In your beaks.’ Memories seem to cleave to the curlew’s call, so I cannot hear it without a rush of unhappy recollections, dark visions and regrets. It’s a bird best appreciated alone and sad-hearted. In one of Yeats’s most beautiful lyrics, ‘He Reproves the Curlew’, the mythical figure of Red Hanrahan finds the bird’s song tilts him into despair for a lost love.”

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Another Glorious Day in Ventura (June 27,2021)

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Today, was what birding is all about: out in the world, looking at the birds! We didn't get any Lifers, but we got great looks at some favorites! Look at those Brown Pelicans... I always thought they resembled DC-10's flying across the sky in formation --and it was only this recent trip out of to Ventura when I realized that they’re incredibly graceful in the air!

Our first stop was Ormond Beach, which Tracey and Dai had uncovered. Not only did they meet the caretaker, Walter, but they also saw an Ibis.... The area is behind a chain-link fence, like the Settling ponds. But Ormond Beach is a bird hotspot... and despite the "view" of the gas-fired power plant (Tracey calls it "scenic"), the area functions as an important conservation area for Snowy Plovers and Least Terns. According to Wikipedia, the area was having issues with a very large homeless community (the issue was human waste and crime), but we saw no sign whatsoever of any problem. We got to chat with Walter (learning of his health issues and recent fall), and also chatted with a few people from the Nature Conservatory...

Most of the shore birds are long gone... 

IMG_5393 (1)Ormond Beach Power Plant slated for removal in near future
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Walter lives on site.
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We saw Killdeer, song sparrows, American Goldfinches, and a Savannah Sparrow as soon as we arrived. 
Walking along the muddy stream, there were not a lot of birds, other than this Great Blue Heron below. 

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We ended up down on the beach where we saw the most beautiful sight of three Long-Billed Curlews in the surf.

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Ventura Settling Pond

Next stop was the Settling Ponds--another very industrial site, located adjacent to the water treatment facility... again behind a chain-link fence. We saw wonderful mallards and Pie-Pilled Grebes, my favorites: Ruddy Ducks and snowy egrets and a great blue heron...

 

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And finally, it was back to Santa Clara's Estuary, where we walked with the Ventura Audubon group last month. 

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Marbled Godwits


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So many Mallards!
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Least Tern Nesting Area at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve (June 20, 2021)

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Illegal drone scares terns, which abandon 2,000 eggs on Bolsa Chica nesting island
Drones and off-leash dogs are a growing threat to birds at the Huntington Beach reserve.

News.

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Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve (June 20, 2021)

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Marbled Godwits
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Beautiful Cormorant in the water...those eyes!
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American White pelicans 
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Snowy Egret
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Brown Pelican
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Horned Lark
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Cormorant
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Turkey Vulture

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Long Billed Curlew
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Green Heron
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Bee passes by the precious Least Tern babies



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Parents busy feeding


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Horned Lark: Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve (June 2021)

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“IT HAS BEEN CALLED “the most common bird you never heard of.” The Horned Lark breeds on mountaintops, in low deserts, and all across the American prairie. In winter, it frequents plains, shores, and farm fields. And unlike most New World birds, it ranges widely in Eurasia. Yet most ordinary folk—normal people, nonbirders—just don’t know the bird. Horned Larks don’t come to birdfeeders. They eschew parks and neighborhoods. And they’re flighty, often staying hundreds of feet ahead of human intruders upon their domain. Although the act of simply seeing a Horned Lark requires little effort, the feat of correctly identifying one is something of an accomplishment. The Horned Lark is a birder’s bird. A huge part of the experience of birding is the thrill of discovery. Keep at it for a while, and you might register a bona fide ornithological discovery: a first nesting record for your state or province, for example, or a new field mark for separating one avian species from another. The vast majority of your discoveries, though, will be entirely personal: realizing that there are owls on your property, or that eagles migrate over your neighborhood each year, or that thousands of Horned Larks swarm the pastures, cornfields, and waste places around the outskirts of town. Eventually and inevitably, the birder comes to take the Horned Lark for granted. Once you know they’re there, Horned Larks are everywhere. Objectively speaking, they’re as beautiful as when you first encountered them, with their ornate facial markings and tinkling call notes, rising up in front of you. But they become frankly commonplace after a while. Perhaps, but there is something else: Years, even decades, after our first encounter with the species, it is an inspiration. We never forget that initial wonder, that moment of awareness that this world of ours is full of undiscovered wonders and blessings.”

How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding by Ted Floyd




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The Great-Horned Owl- June 2021

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I cried when I saw my first owl.

It was our second attempt to find her. We heard that a great-horned owl had made a nest at the LA Arboretum. When we asked the first day, we were given very detailed and careful instructions of how to find the owl. We looked so hard, but no luck. We heard from others that the fledglings had left the nest and that owls destroy their nests after one use. WE had no idea if this was true or not, but we figured we were too little, too late. 

Back the next day--hot on the trail of the Scaly-Breasted Munia-- we were told that the owls had not left. In fact, a photographer had been there that very morning to capture the owls. So, we raced off--hoping against hope. 

This from Hansen's Field Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada:

Lord of the night. Roosting in seclusion, deep within shaded forests or sheltered in a cranny high on a cliff face, this sturdy, full body, and fearsome predator possesses the erect ears and focus glare of an enormous cat. Daylight elucidates a large, motionless form the color and pattern of autumn wood. The bane of the songbird world; uproarious commotion and agitated notes erupt upon the disclosure of this ominous carnivore. Face set within a slowly swiveling turret, it’s stares down through narrow eyes of sleepy in difference. This look of calm and passivity is deceptive, for when dusk settles, this powerful figure moves forth into darkness to seize and spirit away prey, be it the size and gravity of a cat, or the insignificance of an annoying bird to hurls insert insults by day.

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My first owl, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of her! Hansen describes it so beautifully. When she opened her eyes-- with great indifference looking down at us, I was surprised to feel tears spilling down my cheeks... I am not sure if I imagined it, but I think she also unfurls a dark foot.... from beneath a thick hem of feathers...

What a majestic and awesome bird!

This all reminded me of my favorite book on owls, Wesley the Owl. I loved meeting the author when she visited our bookclub at Caltech.

My next dream is to see a baby barn owl!

From the Hidden Life of Owls:

“INSIGHTS FROM AN OWL › Keep only what is useful. Regurgitate the rest. › Be patient. Eventually something will move. › Learn through play. › Only one out of four or five tries yields a mouse. Never give up. › Accept help when it is offered. › Adapt to stay resilient. › Travel every four to six months. › Take time to sit and observe. › Death is a necessary ingredient in life. Accept the transformation. › Never foul your own nest. › Parenthood is temporary. › The Great Gray Owl does not see what the Great Horned Owl sees. Perspective is everything. › Withhold judgment. Nature does not take sides. › Where you live is not nearly as important as where you are alive.”

— The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature's Most Elusive Birds by Leigh Calvez

See Brain Pickings: Of Owls and Roses: Mary Oliver on Happiness, Terror, and the Sublime Interconnectedness of Life
“The world where the owl is endlessly hungry and endlessly on the hunt is the world in which I live too. There is only one world.”

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Ventura Settling Ponds: Summer

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The Ventura Settling Ponds are located just north of Surfer's knoll in Ventura, our favorite beach in LA. The 20-acre site is called the settling ponds because the manmade beds collect treated water discharged from an adjacent wastewater plant.

The discharged water flows through three storage ponds named Snoopy, Lucy and, because of its shape, Bone. Eventually, the water seeps into the Santa Clara River estuary. 

There is an ominous chain-link fence that you pass through to enter the site. If not for the Birders Welcome sign, I probably would have hesitated to enter since you feel like you are trespassing on the facility! The smell doesn't help either. 

We arrived early in the morning on June 13, 2021. 

We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Yellow-breasted Chat. With clear instructions and a map from my sister, we set off down the sandy path.

The air was filled with birdsong! The solemn beauty reminded me of the serene Camargue region in France, my favorite birding spot in the world. 

Of course, there were no flamingos in Ventura. And we did not see the Chat nor could we find the marsh wren.

But we saw these below (Yellow Warbler and Tree Swallow were lifers)

Mallard
Pied-billed Grebe
American Coot
Western Gull
Least Tern
Brown Pelican
White Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Snowy Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Turkey Vulture
Black Phoebe
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Bushtit
European Starling
House Finch
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
Song Sparrow
California Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Great-tailed Grackle
Yellow Warbler
Anna's Hummingbird
Allen's Hummingbird
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Double-crested Cormorant
Bewick's Wren

 

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I have become really fond of swallows lately. Like a painting in the fog.

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197011599_10158009804320108_8862663662246559706_nThe fog made for some magical pictures--here a double-crested cormorant, which I called double breasted cormorant until Liz corrected me. 

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Another recent favorite are the grackles... Ever since Texas....

Pictures became more vivid when we went back after the fog burned off around 2pm.

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Least Terns

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We saw a glorious snowy egret--look at those golden slippers!
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IMG_4141 (1)The Black-crowned Night-Heron. Dai calls him the "old man of the pond."

Juvenile below


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Merlin says Mallard, but she seemed big for a mallard.IMG_4141 (1)

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THE BIRDS: JUNE IS FOR JUNCOS

 

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First published in Entropy June 2021

Cordoba, in southern Spain, is famous for its Fiesta de los Patios. The ultimate battle of the blossoms, the festival is held every May, when people travel to Andalucía from all over to watch locals competing to outdo each other for the most over-the-top, flower-filled patio. There are ferns and tree palms growing wildly alongside green leaf-climbers and flowering trees; with every conceivable wall space occupied by hanging terracotta pots overflowing with orange and red and pink geraniums. And, in the middle of this flowery splendor, fountains murmur and Spanish guitarists are brought in to serenade the judges. Of course, wine is involved.

Could paradise be an Andalucían patio?

Returning to California, I decided to put up some geranium-filled terracotta pots of my own. Sure, I only put up five, but it might have been the best idea I ever had.

2.

If not for the stretched-out days of Covid, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the two dark-eyed juncos who began intently flying back and forth into one of our hanging pots. In and out a hundred times a day, I wondered what was going on? One day in early June, while watering the flowers, a dark-eyed junco zoomed out of the pot and situated herself on a tree branch and proceeded to chirp at me for thirty minutes. Was I imagining that she looked mad? My mom would say, she was “madder than a wet hen.” All puffed up like a fugu fish too!

Note to self: Check pot in morning. Could there be a nest?

Sure enough, the next day I found a nest in the pot with three speckled, pale blue eggs.

Internet search: Incubation 11-13 days. Young: Both parents feed the nestlings.

After that, every time I passed the pot, I’d peer in at the momma junco sitting on top of her eggs. She looked sweetly protective. And, proud! I could see why; for the nest was a marvel!

I once discovered a perfect little bird’s nest on the ground, when I was a child. It was just lying in the wet grass. I brought it home, enchanted that birds could create such intricate and beautiful nests.

Serious birders will talk about their first bird memory, which is sometimes also their spark bird—the one that set off a lifetime of subsequent birding, something they also talk about. My own earliest bird memory was seeing a brilliant blue jay in a sycamore tree in an arroyo near my childhood home in Los Angeles. It was autumn, and the tree shimmered golden in the afternoon sunshine. I vividly recall being stopped in my tracks by its beauty.

But what was that off-putting sound? Looking up, I saw a blue jay squawking and carrying on about something.

It was not long after that when I found the beautiful nest in the wet grass.

3.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

NEST DESCRIPTION
Females build the nests, using her beak to weave together materials and her body to give the nest its shape. Nests can be quite variable depending on where they are built. Sometimes ground nests get just a fine lining of grasses or pine needles. Other nests may be built on a foundation of twigs, leaves and moss, then lined with grasses, ferns, rootlets, hair, and fine pieces of moss. The nests usually take 3-7 days to build, and when finished they are 3-5.5 inches across, with an inner diameter of 2.4-2.8 inches and depth of 1.6-2.8 inches. It’s rare for a junco to reuse a nest.

NESTING FACTS
Clutch Size: 3-6 eggs
Number of Broods: 1-3 broods
Egg Length: 0.8in (1.9-2.1 cm)
Egg Width: 0.6in (1.5-1.6 cm)
Incubation Period: 12-13 days
Nestling Period: 10-13 days
Egg Description: White, gray, pale bluish white, or pale-greenish white speckled with brown, gray and green. Occasionally unmarked.
Condition at Hatching: Naked except for dark gray down on the back, eyes closed, clumsy.

4.

Right on schedule, the eggs hatched in the third week of June. I read that junco hatchlings are blind and feather-less. They looked utterly helpless. And they were gooey for days. I knew this because by then I had created my own perch, on a step ladder that I placed at a comfortable distance from the nest.

At first, I was unable to verify all three were alive, since I didn’t want to get too close. But I knew that one was definitely alive since it was such a drama queen! Chirping nonstop with a bright yellow gape looking like it was on fire with bright red outlines. It was impossible to ignore.

This was the start of nonstop work for the parents. Both the mother and the father, working in tandem, spent their days gathering food and feeding the chicks. At first only one baby (aka “Drama Queen”) actively had its mouth open; though all three seem to be alive, from what I can see from my ladder-perch.

When not gathering food, the father spent his time guarding perimeter. If we entered the area, he would start his nonstop barking. Yes, we were being warned.

Within forty-eight hours, two of the junco babies became very active. Their eyes wide open, they were already sprouting feathers. That is when things started really moving. Like a busy runway at LAX, the pot was a constant hum of inbound and outbound junco parents. The hatchlings became extremely demanding. Resembling tiny pitcher plants in the rainforest collecting rainwater, their mouths were perfect funnels for eating. Gapes brightly colored yellow—like someone had taken a highlighter pen to outline them for easy night feeding. And the little chowhounds had begun to chirp incessantly. To my ears, they sounded like crickets, completely taking over the soundscape in our backyard.

5.

In Japan, where I lived for most of my adult life, I had become sensitive to soundscapes. My friends were always attentive to the frogs’ singing in the paddies and the crickets’ music at night. The sound of the cicadas, like rain. Seasonal phenomena was a constant topic of conversation.

I’d been living in Tokyo about ten years, when a friend’s father decided to perform a little experiment on me. Arriving at their home in suburban Mejirodai one autumn evening, he waved my friend away, telling her: “I want to have a little chat with Leanne-san.” Sitting down on the sofa across from him, he poured me a cup of tea, and we talked about the coming of autumn for maybe twenty minutes, when he suddenly clasped his hand together in delight–with what could only be described as a childlike gleam in his eyes– and said, “Don’t you hear something?”

I was puzzled by this sudden turn of events. I sat quietly for a moment, listening– and then shook my head, no.

He was incredulous (but I couldn’t help but feel he also looked quite pleased with himself) and said: “Are you telling me that you have noticed nothing unusual here this evening?” He cupped his hand around his right ear as if making to try and hear a faint sound.

When I shook my head again, he giddily pulled out a small bamboo cage from under his chair. I immediately realized that he had a bell cricket in there. In fact, the cricket was chirping quite loudly!

How on earth had I missed it?

In English we don’t really have the vocabulary to evoke the ringing, chirping and clicking sounds of all the autumnal “insects voices” (虫の声). We also don’t really have common expressions for our human reactions to the chorus of insects (虫の合唱), the crying of the bell crickets (鈴虫が鳴く), the cicada rains (蝉しぐれ) etc…

My friend’s father ended his experiment, wondering aloud whether I would someday hear the beauty of the autumn insects and appreciate the rain-like sound of the cicadas in summer, once I had lived long enough in Japan.

I also wondered.

As a child in Los Angeles, I used to keep my windows open on warm nights to listen to the peaceful sound of the sprinklers and hear the crickets in the wet grass.

But what happened to those crickets anyway?

Not only do I distinctly remember the chorus of crickets, but there were also armies of ants. We had flies that were so pesty we kept swatters out all summer long. We also avoided eating outside on warm nights because of the way they swarmed. Bees too. I remember frogs and uncountable numbers of worms and snails. Fast forward forty years. Now, living in Pasadena, I wondered what had happened to them to my husband “Don’t you remember summers with swarms of gnats? And flies buzzing constantly? And what about the bugs we used to get in our eyes bicycling around town as kids?” He said it was the same in Ohio. And there were mosquitoes too, he said. It felt strange that no one noticed that an army of bugs had disappeared completely.

6.

From The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, by Matt Kracht
Dork-eye Junco

Sometimes described as attractive, or even “flashy”, this twerp is actually just another grey American sparrow. But this doesn’t stop it from flitting to and from all over the forest floors, making its loud, painfully high-pitched trill, and scratching around for food with its feet.

The male’s song is a loud trill of the same note, repeated up to 23 times. It can last for several seconds and is irritating enough to be heard from hundreds of feet away.

Color: Boring. It’s got a white under-belly, as if anyone cares.

7.

“June gloom” is the name Angelenos give to the band of low clouds and fog that brings cloudy, overcast mornings to the city, starting as early May and sometimes continuing all the way into July.

In Japan, when I had first learned that people considered the long monsoon rains of June to be a “fifth season,” I had understood immediately, for in Los Angeles, we also have a fifth season. June Gloom. And last year, it was going strong.

I wondered if the juncos liked the cool, cloudy mornings. The nestling period would be over soon, and so I waited.

It was on July 2nd. I had gotten a late start to get outside to my viewing ladder.

(By then, we had installed a camera so we could better protect them from predatory raccoons and hawks).

As soon as I opened the back door that day, I knew immediately the junco family was gone. There was a heavy silence, causing me to rush over to nest. It was empty. But when I looked again, I noticed the one dead chick.

Like an angel, its wings were tucked neatly at side.

It was my first big cry in many years.

My husband rushed outside. Had he seen me crying on the camera? He said no footage had been caught of their flying away, so at least we knew the dastardly raccoon did not get them. (He always sets the camera off).

I tried to explain to my husband how alienated from nature I have felt in California—which is ironic given how we are surrounded by the natural world here. But compared to Japan, where the changing seasons had been such a part of communal life, I felt isolated. My husband suggested we bury the chick with full honors under the bird bath. And so, we wrapped it in a handkerchief from Japan for burial.

We talked about how these bizarre Covid times had made the delicacy and the force of nature feel more exquisite. And also more urgent. I thought of what the poet Wendell Berry meant when he wrote of the peace of wild things, and the presence and grace of the world.

8.

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

9.

Until the pandemic, I had always considering myself to be a city person. I never thought much about ecological issues until I came back to the US in mid-life. To be sure, Japan was not perfect in terms of the environment–not by any means. But I think it is safe to say that in Japan nature is not held as “standing reserve.” Rather than seen merely as a resource to be used, nature and the seasons are something to which people in Japan strive to be attuned. Deep listening is an especially humbling act, as the ephemeral and transient quality of sound demands attention and focus.

In Tochigi, the city where I lived, there was the custom of water harps. A Japanese invention, suikinkutsu 水琴窟 are often found in traditional Japanese gardens, especially in tea ceremony gardens. Made by burying an inverted terracotta bowl with a small hole in the top into the ground, water then drips into the bowl from the top creating a pleasant sound, similar to a Japanese zither, or koto 琴, from which the suikinkutsu derives its name.

Having never been bombed during the war, Tochigi has many historic buildings and gardens. It is filled with scenic splendor. And the idea behind installing these water harps around town was to get visitors –and locals alike– to stop for a moment in their busy day and engage in mindful listening. To allow for a meditative pausing to be able to more fully appreciate the beauty of the town.

I always loved watching the people stopping to listen to the music of the world.

During the pandemic, I guess I became a kind of accidental birder. Life slowed down, with the relentless call to “produce” echoing more hollowly. With abundant time at home, I started to become familiar with my critter neighbors.

How could I have not noticed them before?

My husband calls the bird world a “parallel universe.” It’s out there, pulsing with music and activity, mostly oblivious to us. But we can take fleeting journeys into their world. Listening to their musical conversations, we can find comfort in a world so rich with creation and life.

* * *

Leanne Ogasawara is a frequent contributor to Entropy. She has worked as a translator from the Japanese for over twenty years. Her translation work has included academic translation, poetry, philosophy, documentary film, and poetry. Her creative writing has appeared in Gulf Coast Journal, the Kyoto Journal, River Teeth/Beautiful Things, Hedgehog Review, Entropy, the Dublin Review of Books, and forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine. She has a monthly column at the science and arts blog 3 Quarks Daily. Her short story “Bare Bones” won the 2020 Calvino Prize, judged by Joyce Carol Oates.

featured photo by Leanne Ogasawara

 

MY "SPANISH" PATIO

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MOMMY AND DADDY GOING IN AND OUT A MILLION TIMES A DAY!

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SCREAMING EVERY TIME WE BREACH THE NEST PERIMETER (IE OUR WHOLE BACKYARD!!(

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THE PERFECT NEST & A PROTECTIVE MOMMA

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BABIES! AND THE WORK BEGINS...

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Leanne Ogasawara has worked as a translator from the Japanese for over twenty years. Her translation work has included academic translation, poetry, philosophy, documentary film, and poetry. Her creative writing has appeared in Gulf Coast Journal, the Kyoto Journal, River Teeth/Beautiful Things, Hedgehog Review, Entropy, the Dublin Review of Books, and forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine. She has a monthly column at the science and arts blog 3 Quarks Daily. Her short story “Bare Bones” won the 2020 Calvino Prize, judged by Joyce Carol Oates.

Leanne

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