Melospiza melodia

The Kindness of Strangers

2011-01-05T09:38:00.000-08:00

Random Juvenile Double-crested Cormorants posing.

I had a good time at my local Christmas Bird Count this year. Not only was the weather sunny (though cold), I ended up in a vehicle with very good birders. Not all very good birders are generous and helpful; a few are cliquish and arrogant. But on Sunday I felt I was with a charmed group of people--who made sure I got on the bird, who helped me identify Thayer's gulls, and paid attention when I pointed out a find of my own.

I probably will never understand the collector's obsession with listing. I keep lists, because they are a measure of my birding skills and my travels, but I don't care what the numbers are, and I don't care what county the Tufted Duck is in any more than the bird does. I like knowing about vagrants, and why they are around, but I don't chase them. Big days, county lists, all seem a little silly to me. Brain wiring, I suppose.

Insomnia

2010-12-18T21:39:00.000-08:00

Bag beg big bog bug
Ball bell bill boll bull
Last lest list lost lust
Mass mess miss moss muss
Pat pet pit pot put
Pack peck pick pock puck

That's all I could come up on that model in one night.

Falcon Treat

2010-11-28T18:08:00.000-08:00

A day off. Outside. Not rained on. A miracle.

The Peregrine was the treat of the day.

Hibernation

2010-11-21T09:54:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke to the first frost. White crunchy grass, white roofs, droopy lanceolata kale. Dishes cold in the cupboards, storm windows fogged, bed very warm.

I hate November. Rain, dark, cold. That gets worse instead of better. I've always hated November. Every year I have to remember how to dress for damp cold. Boots. Long underwear. Gloves. Hats. Sweaters. Electric mattress pad. At least I'm not in Duluth. Or Edmonton. or Fairbanks. I don't think I'd do well. I chose Portland, Oregon as a home for good reasons. It doesn't get really cold, not for long. Or really hot for long. We get a whole lot of mild weather, and pay with a lot of cloudy, rainy days. But I still hate November.

I make soups instead of salads. And read more. I generally have at least three books I'm reading at once. One that's big and fat, good for the recliner with a cat in my lap. Currently that's The Forsyte Saga, which I've never read. It has a slightly dated, wordy feel, but that's good for November, and makes me slow down. A marvelous mix of snideness and compassion. I understand why Galsworthy won a Nobel.

I also keep a small paperback in my work bag to read at lunch. I know there are people who don't read when they eat alone. I don't understand them. Even as a child I'd read the cereal boxes and vitamin bottle labels if I wasn't allowed a book at the table. Currently my work book is Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Cafe. It's certainly well-written, and I'm enjoying it, but it's a "secret" book: going back in time and uncovering things from different points of view that the narrator already knows. That the characters know.

"Secret" books annoy me. Just tell me the story. Sometimes the secrets aren't worth the wait. Sometimes they are tricks that overturn everything I've just read. This does not make the writer look clever to me. I feel cheated. Sometimes they are damned good books, like Roy's The God of Small Things, but I still get annoyed. The same way present tense narratives annoy me. I can get past it, but why should I?

Then I have a book or several on my iPhone. I dislike buying ebooks with DRM, but it's so convenient to have books in my pocket I put up with it rather than spite myself. Right know I'm reading Le Guin's Lavinia. I'm not sure what I think of it yet. Ursula K. Le Guin can make any story sound good, the way Willie Nelson can make any song sound good. The font in the ebook is difficult to read, though. Ebooks are just not robust yet. Too much weird formatting. I can't read on the phone when I'm eating. No good way to prop the phone, and too many greasy fingers. But on a plane, in a waiting room, or in the bathroom, hooray.

Stay warm. Get a good book. Make some soup.

Don't Give Up

2010-11-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

What a rotten summer. Too much day job, too much rain, not enough birding. Hardly any ripe tomatoes. I've been hanging on with my fingertips over an abyss of depression.

I had a good vacation in Denver in September, but it wasn't a birding vacation. I did see a Dipper in the South Platte, which surprised me, and delighted in the White-throated Swifts chirruping around Red Rocks Amphitheatre. And the SUN.

But I haven't felt much like posting. While checking my teeth, the dentist asked me in passing what else I was doing on my day off. I said, "Just laundry and housework." His reply was, "It's never JUST laundry and housework. Those are important." He's right. Those are my life. They're not JUST anything.

Today among all the Juncos eating seeds in the Cimicifuga was a White-throated Sparrow, my first of the year. I'm inspired despite the rain. If I just hang on, life always gets better.

It's a Hoot.

2010-07-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

I bought a garden ornament. It's about 2 feet tall, granite, and well over 100 lbs. It took two guys at Portland Nursery to lift it into my truck. I'm fortunate to have a strong man living in the house. He said it felt about as heavy as a Harley Sportster engine.

And it's an owl.

I don't do ceramic frogs and plastic flamingos and gazing balls or anything cutesy, but a hunk of stone with eyes fits right in with the the stone patio, the geraniums and hostas and the Gourmet Popcorn rose.

A Little Cheese with that Whine, Please

2010-07-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

It's so hard to come back from vacation. Same old same old at work, weeds to pull and house to clean, rush hour traffic and appointments to make, not enough time for birding, and not enough money to retire.

On the other hand, it's summer, I'm employed, and I had a great vacation. This is my first (and only) digiscoped picture, hand-held on a borrowed scope, of Ferruginous Hawk nestlings. When I have more time I'll try it out with my own elderly scope. I understand the appeal.

Complaining about not enough time, though, is as silly as complaining about money. I have enough of each so that it's all about priorities. If I wanted to spend my time birding and digiscoping, I would. I just don't want it badly enough. If I wanted to retire, I'd figure out a way. Just as I figured out how to go back to school when I didn't have enough money. Too many interests, and not enough obsession with any one of them, that's where I get stymied.

Too Darn Hot

2010-07-02T07:20:00.001-07:00

This is a view from my father's back porch in Arkansas. Overcast, in the 90's, muggy. Hilly oak and pine forest around a lake. If I was outside, I was sweating. It was hard to breathe, especially coming from cool Saskatchewan. This Pacific northwest woman is not acclimated to this kind of weather.

But it sure was beautiful, and peaceful. Turtles (Eastern Painted, I think) crawled up to bask on a log, baby mallards nibbled the grass, and a female Wood Duck would perch on the bird feeder.

I didn't bird for more than 30 minutes at a time in the heat, but it was fun to see all the common birds I don't see in the west--cardinals, titmice, Red-bellied woodpeckers, Eastern Phoebes, and the raucous Carolina Wrens. A juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk seemed to think Dad's neighborhood was its territory and screamed a lot at crows.

The biggest treat was up-close views of a pair of elegant Mississippi Kites, a life bird (the red-shoulder was not happy). And I used a recorded call on my iPhone (Audubon Guide app) to call in a Pine Warbler. Worked like a charm. First time I've ever phoned in a bird.

Tough Guy

2010-06-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a roadside badger for your amusement. Big, low, tough, and dusty. Not Wind in the Willows material at all.

After the cool and windy prairies of Saskatchewan, I'm headed to the hot and muggy hills of Hot Springs, Arkansas for a family visit. I've been there in April, but I don't know what will show up at the feeder in the end of June. I'll have to get up very early to get some pleasant-temperature birding done.

But not as early as I did in Cold Lake, Alberta. I never saw it completely dark while I was in Canada during the week around the solstice. It was still light when I went to bed, and even when I was up at 3:30 in the morning, the eastern sky was light. The sunrise took a looong time. The red sun peeked up over the horizon in a lazy fashion, and the sky stayed pink for hours.

Prairies and Boreal Forest

2010-06-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a birding trip to Alberta and Saskatchewan led by the phenomenal Tom Hince. Life birds and animals with young, spectacular scenery, wildflowers, and nobody else around. Seeing birds in their breeding habitat instead of only in migration and in winter was the best part. Sanderlings in alternate plumage! Common Goldeneye chicks! Juvenile Crossbills! Breeding eastern warblers!

And a lifer Upland Sandpiper.

I'm tired, but it was a great trip.

Department of Redundancy Department

2010-05-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

In the same vein as PIN number and ATM machine, I saw an RV with the model name "Mobile Traveler." As opposed to what, a static traveler? An immobile traveler?

A block away on the local school signboard was an announcement: Junta de PTA mtg. That's one way to be bilingual, I guess.

2010-05-17T19:59:00.000-07:00

A juvenile Tree Swallow poked his head out of a brand new birdhouse on Oak Island, on Sauvie Island on Sunday. Lots of new birdhouses graced the old barn, outbuildings, and poles. One was nailed upside down. I hope it was a joke, but who knows?

I saw some new year birds--Bullock's Orioles, Western Tanagers, Western Wood-Pewees, Yellow Warblers, and Black-headed Grosbeaks. Warm weather, big beautiful Garry oaks, good friends, and singing House wrens. And probably things I missed. The Towhees and Robins kept fooling me with their songs, and who knows what I missed in the cacophony.

Slough Trail

2010-05-09T17:33:00.000-07:00

I don't have to drive anywhere to walk along the Columbia Slough. Today I saw Cinnamon Teal in a marsh beside the sewage ponds, baby goslings herded by their parents around Heron Lakes Golf Course, and watched race cars practice at Portland International Raceway.

That's a Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad bridge as seen from the pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge is a haven for Cliff Swallows--hundreds of them have built mud nests below where I stood to take the picture.

There were lots of bicyclists on the trail this sunny Sunday morning, one with a dog that he doesn't believe needs to be on a leash (pet peeve), and a few walkers, but no other birders. In the last year, a lot of graffiti has appeared on the signs marking the trail. Some of it has been painted out, but more appears. Why are people such jerks? Wrens are so much more entertaining.

The Amazing Flying Grebe

2010-05-02T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've never seen a Pied-billed Grebe fly before. (And no, I didn't get a picture of that. I felt fortunate to get any kind of picture at all. These little guys move fast.) I saw a brownish-gray bird running like crazy across the water, graceless as a loon. Then it flew low, flapping like a duck, but it was too small. The head and neck hung low, also like a loon. No distinctive markings in flight. "What the hell is that?" I said out loud to myself, alone in the middle of the marsh. I didn't figure out it until after it landed.

The Pied-bills were noisy, too--whoot-whoot-whoot-whoot-whoot.

And I saw five swallow species while standing in the same spot--Cliff, Tree, Northern Rough-winged, Violet-green, and Barn. Along with the first Vaux's Swifts of the year, the air was very busy.

New List

2010-04-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

I have been trying out my new camera, and though I'm a non-photographer and everything is new, I can actually get recognizable, identifiable photos of birds with it. Here's an immature Bald Eagle and a Great Blue Heron from Smith and Bybee Lakes, and a backyard Anna's Hummingbird at the feeder. Now I get to start a list of photographed birds!

This isn't digiscoping, but point and zoom and shoot. I have a decent scope, but my arthritis makes setting up and breaking down the scope a painful nuisance, not to mention schlepping it around. I'll take it if I'm looking for shorebirds or sea ducks, or I'm going to be in one place for a while. But for now, photography is secondary to birding. I have the utmost respect for good bird photographers, especially after today.

I'm learning the limits of the zoom and the stability of my hands, but by golly, if the bird holds still for a little while, shazam. It'll take a while before I'm smarter than this little camera.

Five-sparrow Day

2010-04-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful transition period. This morning on Sauvie Island I saw 5 sparrow species that included wintering Golden-crowns and Lincoln's, and summering Savannahs. (Also Song and White-crowned.) There were a couple of thousand Cackling Geese along with displaying Rufous Hummingbirds. Osprey sat on nests with Shovelers, Bufflehead, and Green-winged Teal below on the water. The treat of the morning was the winnowing Snipe. I hope he's successful in his endeavors, because he worked very hard, diving and yodeling and flapping for a long time.

I even pished up a Common Yellowthroat. I've been told that's the easiest bird to pish into sight, but it made me happy. Once I pished up a coyote in Forest Park while trying to see a Winter Wren. It looked rather disgusted and toddled off.

I also found a recently dead Western Sandpiper lying in the gravel on Rentanaar Rd. Still soft, with eyes gone and belly opened. I was able to spread the wings and appreciate the bright rufous on the scapulars and the white wing stripe, as well the fine black bill and toes. I forget how tiny they are. I've never held one before or seen each feather up close.

Audubon Love, Canon Hope

2010-04-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

I've actually been able to appreciate spring migration this year. Bewick's Wrens wake me up in the morning. I've heard and seen Orange-crowned Warblers and Purple Finches. Every year I remember a few more songs, and can even teach them to others. "It's a Marsh Wren," I whisper. "Golden-crowned Sparrow: Oh, deary me. Hear how the Chickadee doesn't fall the same way?"

The Audubon Guide iPhone App has a good selection of songs and calls for birds. I use iBird Pro for general ID because it's faster and has more information, but for songs Audubon is better. Each is identified by location, too, and there can be 7 or 8 for a prolific singer like Bewick's Wren with geographical differences.

And...! I bought a camera, a Canon SX210is, with 14X optical zoom. The effective focal length only goes up to around 400, but it should still be useful for a lot of birds. It's being shipped as I write. I'm not so much interested in fine photography or digiscoping as just being able to record that hybrid sapsucker or singing sparrow I come across. The photos are secondary to the birding. And I'm too arthritic to haul a scope everywhere. But a pocket point-and-shoot superzoom--I hope I will use it as much as I think I will.

CBC, One Owl.

2010-01-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

The weather was so mild for the Portland Christmas Bird count that for the first time, I needed neither a rain suit nor long johns. I'd even bought a few Little Hotties hand warmers to stick in my gloves and share with less prepared birders. But there was no rain, the temperature stayed in the upper forties, and I saw 50 of the 80 species our group counted.

I missed the really good birds--the Short-eared Owl and the Magpie--wrong group, wrong time--but I did see a Red-shouldered Hawk, a very dark juvenile, the darkest I've ever seen, so much that we all thought it a dark-phase Red-tail except: the bill was too small, the cere too yellow, the tail too long, and the low perch too uncharacteristic. Then it flew. Ah-ha.

And one very pissed-off Great Horned owl with its ear tufts high, at a behind-a-tree potty break. Any owl day is a good day.

I met a lot of very good birders, and remembered why I'll never be one. But that's OK. I have fun, get outside, learn a lot, and get better.

First Bird of the Year

2010-01-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

A bright male Anna's Hummingbird. Not at the feeder, but up in the apple tree. Year of the hummingbird, not bad. I actually saw a gull first, but couldn't identify it. Year of the Unidentified Gull sounds like a bad way to start, but I get to make the rules for my own list, and unidentified birds don't count.

Early this afternoon I saw a bunch (10-15) Eurasian Collard-doves mixed in with some Mourning Doves on my local bird walk along the Columbia Slough. First time I've seen them there. I hope they stick around for the CBC tomorrow. Some may call them Sky-rat Lattes, but a new bird is a new bird. It was fun to pull out my new iPhone and call up the iBird program and double-check my identification.

So my year list is at 20 at 2:30 on New Year's Day, and includes Hooded Merganser, Bald Eagle, and Sharp-shinned Hawk. I plan on having a good year.

Resolved

2009-12-31T19:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a rotten year. Not as rotten as many–I still have a job and a house and a retirement fund. But it began with a crown on a root canal and ended with a root canal through a crown, with a broken shoulder in the middle.

Not a single life bird, no travel, no vacation. (All my paid time off and my money went for shoulder rehabilitation.) I haven't even been out of the city, to the coast or the mountains or the desert. Nothing published, no projects completed or even begun, and the only new thing I've learned is the Taoist Tai Chi saber set (taijidao). That's a real accomplishment, but for a whole year?

So I resolve to do NEW STUFF this year, and not max out my dental insurance for the third year in a row.

And get some life birds.

Odd Little Words

2009-10-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

So what's the longest one-syllable word you can think of?

How many three-letter words can you think of that begin with "U"?

How many birds on the North American list have full common names of only one syllable?

My answers:
Strengths (9 letters! Beat that!)
Urn, use, ugh
Brant, Smew, Ruff

I do have a life, I just spin my mental wheels sometimes.

Varied Thrush Love

2009-10-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

I love the first sightings of fall; the first Cackling Geese overhead, the first wintering ducks in bright plumage, the first Golden-crowned Sparrow. Yesterday I saw my first Varied Thrush of the season, a stunning male. They are one of my favorite birds, because they are beautiful and local, but even more for their song.

I first heard it one March when I was a beginning birder, still in the everything-is-new stage. I read that the road to Larch Mountain was plowed, and drove up early one weekday morning. It was foggy and frigid and though the road was clear, there was deep snow everywhere. I didn't see another car or person the whole way. Just enough room in the parking lot to turn around. Fog drifted between the trees, enclosing me in a sphere of white and green.

It was a morning of sound--Red-breasted Nuthatches yanking, ravens gronking, chickadees chick-a-deeing. And several Varied Thrushes singing their eerie two notes, each slightly different, like a chorus of strange monks at morning services. I was freezing cold, but it was one of those birding epiphanies--just me and the mountain, the birds, the sound, and the fog.

I'm a gestalt birder. It's not the list, or the rarities, or even the identification sometimes, but the whole experience. Yesterday at Smith and Bybee lakes, it was the thick clouds, the fall colors, the swaths of ducks, the winter flocks of "bush-boinkers"-- chickadees, kinglets, Bushtits, and yellow-rumps, all chipping and peeping. And one Varied Thrush posing for me.

Though I have felt for a while that I haven't had anything to say that anybody would want to read, that way too many people would say those things better, and that I didn't want my life permanently on the internet, I have concluded that this is true of all blogs and it doesn't matter. I can write about birding even if I'm not a great birder. I can write about words even if nobody else cares. As long as I have fun, and don't say anything I'm ashamed of. As a friend once said, you can't be embarrassed unless you're pretending to be something you're not.

Feirce Mispelling

2009-06-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

I have the spelling gene. Or, undoubtedly more accurately, the peculiar combination of genetics, training, and neurochemistry that makes me a compulsive speller, with the urge to correct everything from departmental newsletters to my friends' emails to signs painted in the road.

It's a strange kind of visual memory combined with obsessive reading, and I've had it as long as I can remember. Those of us who can spell, when confronted with a puzzle and no dictionary, try out different spellings to see which one looks right. Other errors jump out too, as if they were in fluorescent orange--missing serial commas, misplaced apostrophes, and subject-verb disagreements. With a few changes in my life, I suppose I could have been an underpaid, mediocre, and unhappy copyeditor. Mediocre because I'm not that good at it, and unhappy because I need physical, face-to-face human contact in my job.

The visual memory part is why I don't like to read online. Not anything more than a news story or a blog post. I like physical pages, with a back side and a place to put my finger to hold my place. I can remember that an obscure clue in a mystery was about a third of the way through the book on the upper left page, second paragraph, and find it again.

Knowing how to spell English isn't a virtue, but it is a handy skill, like being able to multiply in one's head (which I can't do). It doesn't make me any money, but it doesn't lose me any, either. I came in second in my school spelling bee in 8th grade--lost on the word "fierce," which I knew, but flubbed. It wasn't very important then, either. I'm prouder of my pie crusts.

The Hummer Show

2009-06-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

I spent a lovely early evening outside sitting in my backyard drinking Full Sail Pale Ale, eating Sweet Onion Kettle Chips, and reading Kate Wilhelm. Life is good.

What I think was a female Anna's Hummingbird (red splotch on white throat) was harassing what I think was a Western Wood-pewee perched on an English Walnut. (After 2 bottles of beer, my focusing gets poor--it took me a while to realize it wasn't the binoculars.) The scene resembled a crow after a red-tail--dive-bombing, chasing, vocal insults. The flycatcher was mostly unperturbed (get lost, kid) while the hummer got more and more in a tizzy. A new show on the hummingbird channel.

Is the Vatican a Country?

2009-05-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

Last night I was counting countries of the world to put myself to sleep. It didn't work--countries have gotten too easy. 193, if I include Taiwan, which acts like a country, and and don't include the Vatican, an Ecclesiastical State. The definition is fuzzy--how about Kosovo, or the Western Sahara? The Turks recognize Northern Cyprus, but nobody else does. How about South Ossetia? How much recognition makes a country?

Definitions and labels always have fuzzy edges. What's a species? It looks easy at first--distinctive populations that don't interbreed. But what about all those damned Big Gulls with Pink Feet? Juncos and Fox Sparrows? DNA isn't the complete answer, nor is appearance or hybridization.

What's a word? A Sentence? A sexual identity? All definitions are arbitrary to some extent, all edges are fractal, and the world is gnarly. And I like it that way.

A Flyover and a New Call

2009-05-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

This morning at Smith & Bybee Lakes in North Portland, there was a cacophony of birdsong. My auditory memory stinks, and I don't bird enough to improve it much, but every spring, even though I have to learn many things all over again, I recognize a few more songs and calls. Amid all the Tree Swallows, Robins, Song Sparrows, and Red-winged Blackbirds, I could pick out Yellow Warbler, Yellowthroat, Brown Creeper, Marsh and Bewick's Wrens, Western Wood-Pewee, and Western Tanager, all by myself, without having to see the bird. Then sometimes, I just closed my eyes, inhaled, and let it all wash over me.

There was one very distinctive call that I didn't know at all, deep in the marsh. I sounded like a deep-throated, two-tone, piglike honk--"hunh-hohnk" is how I wrote it in my notes. I knew it wasn't a bittern or a sora. I came home and listened to my recordings, and darned if it wasn't the display call of a Green Heron. Never heard it, not to notice. And I'd seen a Green Heron in a different part of the marsh earlier, a neat flyover--a "what the hell's that--kinked neck--too small for a Great Blue--dark red and green--aha" moment. Cool.

Bushtit Nest

2009-05-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I looked at the Bushtit nest in my yard, it was shredded--stretched and torn, with pieces dangling from other branches. I don't know if it was the wind-and-rainstorm we had, or if a predator attacked it, but no Bushtits. The nest was hanging from a very floppy, distal twig on a very big deodar cedar, farther out than recent nests, but I've never seen a completed nest tattered like this. Sometimes they last for years.

What would rip apart a nest for Bushtit eggs? Pretty tiny hors d'oeuvres for a crow. Or maybe it was sloppy construction--the nest looks pulled apart in the middle. I'm sad. The Bushtit nest spectacle has been going on in this tree for fifteen years.

Love those Little Yellow Jobs

2009-05-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hooray, I can now hold my binoculars! It's been two months now since I broke my shoulder, and while I'm still a long way from normal, I'm a functioning human being now that I can bird again.

Within a mile of the house I can see Western Tanagers, Bullock's Orioles, White-crowned and Song Sparrows, four kinds of swallows, lots of Vaux's Swifts, Western Wood Peewees (familiarly known in the household as Western Pud Weewees), both hummingbirds (not at feeders), Wilson's and Yellow warblers (with the usual butterbutts), Bewick's and House wrens. I didn't miss spring after all!

I don't need to ID a rare warbler. Just hearing a Black-headed Grosbeak chortling away is satisfying in my deprivation.

My household bushtit is sitting on eggs. (I saw them getting it on in my forsythia--they caught my attention because they were making a lot of noise but staying in one place for several seconds at a time.)

No Birds, No Women

2009-05-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

It's been seven and a half weeks since I broke my shoulder. I can hold my binoculars briefly, but raising my left arm is still a trial. It's an astonishing amount of work to rehabilitate from this injury, and I'm being diligent and compliant with my physical therapy. I still can't drive. The shoulder belt is tolerable, but the right turns--ouch.

Luckily, I went to the bookstore just before I fell down, so I had a lot to read. But not any more. Now I'm rereading. All sorts of things from The Virginian to the Earthsea books to Dennis Lehane to Vanity Fair. I can only do so much weeding and Tai Chi and petting the cat. My shoulder hurts and I'm tired of it.

So I sat down and read The Hobbit. Thought it would cheer me up, and it did. But I noticed one thing for the first time--there are NO women in the book. Not one. A couple of asides about wives and children, but not a single female is even named, and no walk-ons or speaking parts. Not even Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. No female dwarves, elves, hobbits, wizards, orcs, wolves, eagles, trolls, stone-giants, dragons, ravens, or human women. Yet all these creatures presumably reproduce--Thorin son of Thrain, Roac son of Carc, Bard descendant of Girion, etc.

How could I possibly NOT have noticed all these years? I knew Tolkien was bad at women, but wow.

Has there ever been a novel with no men? None even named? None necessary? I can't think of any.

Addendum: I wuz wrong; Belladonna Took is mentioned on the second and third pages of text as Bilbo's mother. But she's not a character in the book.

Weird Words

2009-03-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

Why are "wor" words such as word, worse, work, wort, and worm, all pronounced like "er," "ir," "ear," or "ur" as in bird, hearse, shirk, hurt, pert, and germ? the "W" seems critical, because there are other W oddities, like were, was, and war, that aren't pronounced anything like the words that look as if they should rhyme--here, gas, far.

World. Worsted. Worth. Worry. Worship. Not all from the same Old English spellings, either.

Just wondering.

No Birding

2009-03-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

Since I broke the head of my left humerus twelve days ago, spring migration has gone on without me. I can't hold up my full-size Nikon 8X40s with my arthritic right hand, much less focus them. I can't drive, or walk more than a few blocks. I want my life back!

The first Rufous Hummingbird of the season showed up yesterday at my feeder, a stunning male even without optics. A male Anna's, too. And a pair of Bushtits are checking out my deodar cedar for this year's nest. Every year I can watch them build it from my study window (except for the year they deserted to the lilac). Once they covered the whole nest with apple blossom petals, and it fluttered white as a bridal bouquet for a day.

My ears are still working, and I can listen to the regular city birds sing--the Bewick's Wrens, Song Sparrows, Robins, Juncos, and Chickadees--but my ears aren't smart enough for anything unusual. I must make plans and save money for a birding trip for next year--something luxurious. With someone to teach me eastern warblers, perhaps. Something to look forward to in this slough of frustration.

Everyday Good Birds

2009-02-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

Today on Sauvie Island, Rentanaar Rd, I saw a Red-tailed Hawk that still puzzles me. It doesn't look exactly like anything in my books, but hey--the bird is always right. It was somewhere on the continuum of light and intermediate/rufous morphs, and very beautiful through my scope.

The head and throat were solid chocolate brown, with a bright yellow cere and a dark eye. The breast was a bright rufous, like a bib (or like a Swainson's Hawk), and the belly was delicately barred with T-markings in black. The legs and undertail were white. I never saw the back. The rich rusty tail and fairly dark underwing coverts were briefly visible when it flew.

It was a good raptor day, including a Peregrine, a Cooper's Hawk, Harriers, Kestrels, and a Bald Eagle that flew overhead with a massive bunch of sticks in its talons.

A crow put on a display, half-folding its wings and stooping, then pulling out with a "whoik" sound, over and over. And the Sandhill Cranes danced like ballerinas, leaping straight up en pointe and flapping their wings while oinking like baby pigs.

No rare birds, just a fine morning.

Verbiage

2009-02-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

I was considering irregular verbs yesterday on my commute, from the simple (hold, held, held) to the bizarre (go, went, gone), when I noticed that the verbs that don't change at all, all end in T: put, bet, hit, shut, set, let, spit, slit, cut. Never cutted or setted.

There are some T-verbs that make an -ed past tense some of the time, such as knit/knitted, pet/petted, fit/fitted, sweat/sweated, wet/wetted, quit/quitted. My dictionary says either of these is acceptable, but they're not much in use. My spell-checker doesn't even recognize wetted or quitted.

Sometimes I browse my Old English handbook for the linguistic reasons for these things, but I'm never satisfied. Linguistics doesn't fascinate me like the sheer bizarreness of English. (I only have an Old English handbook because I wanted to dig out the OE derivations of the words in The Lord of the Rings, such as mathom, Mearas, and Theoden.) If I were less lazy, I'd probably know why it's bite bit bitten, do did done, and swim swam swum. Or maybe nobody knows...

First I Couldn't See It, and Then It Was Gone

2009-01-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

Today I filled out a questionnaire about my birding activity from the American Birding Association and Texas A&M University. They wanted to know all sorts of things--the number of birds on my life list (436), how many birds I can identify by sound without a field guide (maybe 50?), how much I'm planning to spend on binoculars next year, and what articles I like best in Birding magazine.

I have no idea how typical I am as an ABA member--probably more typical than I think. I'm a recreational intermediate birder. Birding is largely over my head, but I like that; I learn a lot. I'll never be a particularly good birder: I started too late, my vision is poor and my auditory memory worse, and I'm not obsessed enough. (A lot of the questions had to do with obsession: all my friends are birders--agree or disagree.) But that's OK. I bird for fun. It's a way to decompress, get outside, and focus on something besides the city, people, and myself.

For those reasons, I prefer to bird alone. In a group I learn more and see more birds, but I don't have revelations and epiphanies. Having somebody else stake out the Flammulated Owl isn't as much of a thrill as figuring out the song and jizz of a Hammond's Flycatcher all by myself.

My life list is graded: at the top are the birds I found and identified without help. The survey didn't ask any questions about that.

ababcdcdefefgg

2009-01-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

Besides all the words which look like they should rhyme but don't, there are all the words which rhyme but don't look like they should.

blue coo do ewe gnu lieu moue new queue roux ragout shoe two through view you

How I love the outrageous disordered evolving sprawl of English.

And to make use of rhymes as well as list them, I offer a sonnet:

My favorite tale is not the hero’s quest,
but redemption, as the sinner learns her sin.
She makes her great mistake and fails her test;
her friends lie wounded, and her lies wear thin.

When good and evil battle for a prize,
the armorers and poets lend their staves;
but the inward war, no honor in its guise,
buries its unclean dead in hidden graves.

A shattered mirror, shards upon the floor
reflect a splintered image of her pride.
A breastplate made of glass, a paper door
are all that screen her from her guilty side.

She turns her back and stumbles through the rain,
naked but for shame and others’ pain.

Unrhymes

2009-01-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

I know about homonyms (air/ere/err/heir) and heteronyms (bass/bass, wind/wind), but what does one call words that look like they're supposed to rhyme but don't? English is rife with them.

The most famous is:
bough dough through cough rough
but there are lots of others--

bone done gone
bomb comb tomb
blood food wood
lose hose dose
beat great sweat
here were where
four hour tour
braid plaid said
cat squat what
love move stove
was has gas
finger ginger singer

How else would I get to sleep at night?

This is Not About Politics

2009-01-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

It's about fluency.

First Bird of 2009

2009-01-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

The first bird of my New Year was, not surprisingly in a day-long flood watch downpour, the same Anna's hummingbird (pretty sure it's a female after studying my book, not an immature male) that spent the Christmas storm hanging out on my trouble light. I've named her Zippy, after the female Anna's that spent one winter inside Parkrose Hardware a few years ago. She's very loyal and regular and chases off any other hummer that attempts her feeder.

I've never had a year of the hummingbird before; sounds like a good omen.

Words on Words

2009-01-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

words are so easy to hold
chunks of gray metal
wrenches and hammers

a shining liquid
poured into a mold
cools and thickens

into shapes so solid
and satisfying
to possess, collect

the thing itself has no words
I walk the perimeter
palpate the bones

under the skin
turn the orange round and round
looking for the way in

someone had a vision
but wrote it down
and passed it on to me

someone wanted to encircle joy
with ritual objects, souvenirs
and willed me this brittle house

all pieces
potsherds, names and proverbs
saying, this is all there is

Winter Hummer

2008-12-20T19:09:00.000-08:00

Keeping the hummingbird feeder thawed in the snow has been a challenge--a 100W bulb does the trick if it's close enough. This Anna's spent the day in the warmest spot available.

Fantasyland

2008-12-04T06:48:00.000-08:00

Grail

Here comes a hero
look at him go
Here's a quest

Twelve volunteers step forward
The rest of us
turn back to dig

and consider what we've missed
a jewel, a dragon
instead of potatoes

There goes a hero
no time to lose
His daughter waves her spade

Street Sign Anagrams

2008-11-30T17:09:00.000-08:00

My brother says our family tends to be a little OCD (or CDO, he says, because that's alphabetical and the way it should be). He can recite the states of the US in alphabetical order. My nephew counts syllables on his fingers as people talk. I count rhymes, countries, birds, bones of the body, and pieces of laundry. And make anagrams.

It all started on the way to work at a stop sign,
Stop
Tops
Spot
Post
Opts
Pots

Then Right Turn Signal became
Girth Runt Aligns.

North and south became
Thorn and shout.

East and west became
Seat and stew.

Exit only was too frustrating, (extol yin?) so I tried other words.
My best is seven: spare spear pears pares parse rapes reaps.
Next comes the excellent STOP with six, and then a few fives:
Stale steal slate tales least
Stare tares tears rates aster
Siren resin reins rinse risen.
My best without an S: trace caret crate cater react.

Fungus amongus

2008-11-30T16:53:00.001-08:00

While walking the garden today I saw something fluorescent orange in the flowerbed. Assuming it was a piece of plastic, I reached down, and found it was growing. A fungus I'd never seen before, translucent as Jell-O, folded in tight leaves. On to Google--this is why I love the internet. In five minutes I found I had Phlogiotis helvelloides (Apricot jelly fungus) in my yard, though none of the photos I found were the amazing blaze orange of mine. Edible, but tasteless, I read. I didn't try it.

Then as I stood on the back porch with my binos, watching a flock of bushtits gleaning my apple tree, with a dignified male flicker presiding over all, something small and dark and fast shot overhead. Another merlin! Powering through, long banded tail, pigeon-like wings slamming down, down, boom, boom. The same bird? A neighborhood merlin? I love it.

Thanksgiving Merlin

2008-11-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

I didn't expect to find many birds on a drizzly late Thanksgiving morning, but I often combine binoculars with an exercise walk. So I pulled on a raincoat and headed to the North Portland sewage ponds. The yellow-rumps were cheerful and plentiful, the kinglets and creepers solitary and cute, nothing unusual. I found a couple of Greater White-fronted Geese on the edge of a flock of cacklers and figured they were my good birds for the day.

I was on my way home in the rain on the residential streets, keeping my binos covered with my elbow, when I saw a hawk soaring--no, it's small and dark, it's a crow--no it's not, there's tail barring. Probably a red-tail. Everything I see is a red-tail. Wait a moment--that's no buteo, the wings are pointed. The tail isn't long enough for an accipiter--and the wings are pointed. Straight line across the leading edge of triangle-shaped wings, fanned tail, dark, dark, dark against the gray clouds. Powerful wingbeats, bullet-head, it's a freaking Merlin.

I'd never seen a Merlin soaring before. I've seen them perched, attacking, and barrelling overhead, but never soaring, certainly not two blocks from my house. Totally unexpected. Made my day.