All posts by sean

acute

Autumn advances with staggered steps. Windbreaker for the morning ride. Skies of grey with a sly nip to the air. First bite into a crisp apple, newly arrived at the farmer’s market. And that old familiar unnamed feeling, a sense of urgency juxtaposed with futility. Last Friday, I listened to an episode of Radio Lab while returning from a four and a half hour bird walk with some nice folks from the Baltimore Bird Club. One of the stories was about Cotard’s Syndrome, a major symptom of which is a very deep sense that you’re not completely here, that you might not really exist. I briefly wondered if I had a touch of Cotard’s Syndrome…certainly there have been times in the past that I’ve felt that way. These days my existence feels more grounded, but there are always those few moments here and there when I question reality and my presence within it.

Meanwhile I’ve succeeded in luring the birds, and not just the thieving squirrels, to my postage stamp yard. The chatter of chickadees fills my insides with warm golden light. How I’ve missed that sound in my everyday life.

Yup, I reckon it’s time to join the gym again.

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by sean on September 29, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in autumn, birds, existence, life

Posted by sean on September 29, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/09/29/acute/

primeval

Em El and I took some much-needed vacation time last week. Part of our journey included a return trip (for me) to one of my favorite places in the South: the Congaree National Park. This park protects the largest remaining tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest on the continent. The average canopy height of the trees is over 100 feet, with many trees well over 150 feet high, including the National Champion Loblolly Pine, which tops out at 167 feet high and almost 15 feet around. Here I am below in front of one of the Congaree’s mighty giants. To put things in perspective a bit, I am about 6 feet 2 inches tall.

On this day, we spent about 6 hours exploring the swamp and it held many wonders for us. Migrating warblers and vireos flitted through the park, often coming quite close, and we frequently heard the wild cry of the Pileated Woodpecker, a bird that is in my mind the perfect ambassador to a place like the Congaree. During our sojourn, we were also lucky enough to spot two Barred Owls. Perhaps the biggest surprise, though, was the small herd of wild boars we startled (the startling was mutual, believe me) as we hiked through one of the more remote areas of the park.

Between the massive trees, the clumps of Spanish moss hanging everywhere, and the overwhelming primal feel of the place, I felt like we’d traveled back in time, and I couldn’t help wondering what it must’ve been like before our ancestors tore through here like a pack of Tasmanian devils, chopping down trees and draining swamps like there was an endless supply of both.

All I can say is I am so glad that the National Park Service exists. It is arguable that it was too little too late, and that in the grand scheme of things, the NPS protects a mere shred of the natural beauty that once adorned this country. But if it weren’t for places like the Congaree, it would be so much harder to drive through the South today and see how suburban sprawl eats up more and more land. I think of my trip to the Congaree like a pilgrimage. I return to the city renewed inside, for a little while at least.

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by sean on September 23, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in birds, congaree national park, conservation, nature, owls, south carolina, southeast u.s., swamps, trees, vacation, warblers, woodpeckers

Posted by sean on September 23, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/09/23/primeval/

still here

I am still alive. Hard to believe it’s been almost a month since last post. But in that time I have been consumed with the home buying process, moving, and all the associated time-sucking activities. I figure it will be a few more weeks before I am back to semi-regular ruminations. Hope you all are well.

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by sean on August 2, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in home ownership, moving

Posted by sean on August 2, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/08/02/still-here/

corroded contact points

Sometimes we disappoint ourselves, in either the short or the long term. Sometimes both. Not much has left my head lately and traveled to the page. Other life things have taken precedence. Which is fine, but I’m getting anxious for them to be resolved. As refuge, I’ve taken to the woods when spare time presents itself. Many of the birds have finished breeding already, and fledglings are out and about: rambunctious teenage woodpeckers, even tinier than usual chickadees, not-as-wary young catbirds. A couple of weeks ago I saw a female Wood Duck with 12 fuzzy little ducklings following her en masse. At the same time and place, I saw two adult Bald Eagles. These birds are truly majestic, so much so that perhaps our country doesn’t always live up to the pure ideals that they have come to represent.

Meanwhile, change looms ahead and I suppose when the transition completes, I will remain the same. But perhaps not. Certainly the opportunity to learn new things will follow. Certainly the chance to reorder and rearrange my life will dangle in front of me once again. And armed with a little steel wool, I can clean the corrosion off of these contact points in my head. Perhaps then the clarity I seek will reach its target.

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by sean on July 6, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in birds, change, ducks, inner life, nature, parts of the whole, writing

Posted by sean on July 6, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/07/06/corroded-contact-points/

romance in the woods

Love was in the air during my weekly Friday birding expedition. I followed a pair of Carolina Chickadees for a while; the female fluttered her wings as the male fed her treats gleaned from the surrounding branches. Not far from them, a pair of Northern Cardinals were engaged in the same courtship ritual. And all around, male birds were singing their hearts out, proclaiming “Mine, mine” on their individual territories. Eastern Towhees were particularly present and loud that morning. A Veery sang down by the water in the same spot where I found one a few weeks earlier. I love the Veery’s song! Wood Thrush, too. We are lucky to have some in the woods behind our house this summer. Overhead, crows harassed a juvenile hawk (Sharp-shinned or Cooper’s, I think, without good enough looks to confirm either way), chasing it from tree to tree for quite some time. Several deer crossed the road about 50 feet ahead, completely oblivious to my presence. Tiny Eastern American Toads hopped here and there all over the trails. I heard more birds than I saw. It’s getting harder to find the birds now, but I try to think of it as more of a challenge and work on my ear birding.

Last night, when I returned from a walk Em said the birds were raising a ruckus outside and she thought there might be an owl around. When we went out a few minutes later to run an errand, sure enough we saw a Barred Owl up in a tree behind the parking lot! It stared us down with its spooky black eyes for a few seconds before flying off. Owls are so awesome!

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by sean on June 16, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in barred owl, birds, courtship, nature

Posted by sean on June 16, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/06/16/romance-in-the-woods/

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

A couple of weeks ago, a sighting at Eastern Neck NWR over on the Eastern Shore caused a bit of a stir on the MDOsprey birding discussion list. The bird was a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, a rarity in much of the United States, with the exception of a very few states where it breeds in the summer. People were driving over to Eastern Neck from all over the state to see this bird, and frantic messages kept appearing on the list asking for updates on when the bird was last seen. Not being one to drop everything and drive many miles for a rare bird sighting, I enjoyed the excitement vicariously through the list and didn’t think much more about it after the uproar finally settled down. Fast forward to this past Saturday when I was down in rural north Texas at Em Ell’s mom’s family reunion. I’m sitting there chowing down on some vegan “chicken” salad under a tent in the 90+ degree heat, when I look out over the grass and see a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher doing a rendition of its “sky dance”!!! As soon as is politely possible, I sneak over for some closer looks. Unfortunately I did not have my bins so had to make do with the naked eye. There was a pair of them perched on the barbed wire fence, taking turns shooting up into the breeze to scarf down some bugs. I suspect they were a male and female, based on the sky dance routine, but can’t say for sure. One of the photos shows what looks to me to be a male on the fence (based on the longer tail, as compared with photos of females). I took some lame photos with my not-made-for-photographing-birds camera. If you click on them and enlarge, you can see the birds a little better. I hadn’t checked the bird’s range when I saw the posts on MDOsprey, but as it turns out, this flycatcher is a yard bird in Texas, as well as in Oklahoma to the north, where it is the state bird. The bird also breeds in a few other bordering states. To me, this is one of the coolest things about birding. In one state a bird can be a total rarity, and yet fairly common in another state. This makes even casual birding while traveling often an exciting time!

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by sean on June 9, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in birds, scissor-tailed flycatcher, texas, travel

Posted by sean on June 9, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/06/09/scissor-tailed-flycatcher/

abandoned umbrellas

A common rainy day sight in the city is the abandoned umbrella. I find this practice of flagrantly abandoning umbrellas at their point of failure to be extraordinarily odd. Countless times have I seen these cast-offs downtown, their broken metal frames splayed obscenely on the sidewalk, or folded and perched forlornly on some faceless building’s window ledge. Their bright hopeful colors belie the tragic loss of function in their mechanisms. Certainly I sympathize with the frustration that suddenly vulnerable pedestrians feel when they are faced with the prospect of getting wet. I have been there myself. But a broken umbrella is a large piece of waste to simply toss aside in the street. Fast food wrappers I can sort of (painfully) understand. However, the step up to throwing an umbrella on the ground is one that my brain can’t seem to navigate. If I were to follow this logic, it seems like the sky would be the limit as to what is deemed “acceptable” as litter. However, I might just not be properly connecting the lines between umbrellas and what else I have found abandoned on the street. For example, during one recent 6-mile bike ride back from an early morning birding expedition, I counted no less than 5 pairs of women’s underwear lying in the road, quite evenly spaced between the park and my house. I felt like I was traveling along some sordid trail at the end of which I had no idea what I might find. I have also seen plenty of shoes, pairs or singles, littering the streets, as well as a surprisingly diverse collection of other clothing items. I always imagine the scenarios that might lead to a particular item ending up there. But maybe I’m over-thinking it and the answer is simple. Perhaps there is a certain fraction of the population for whom disposing of used and unneeded accessories in the street is a commonplace activity. I guess that after giving it some focused thought, it really wouldn’t surprise me.

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by sean on May 26, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in city life, human behavior, rain, trash

Posted by sean on May 26, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/05/26/abandoned-umbrellas/

indirection

Watched them build it block by block, a jail for accessories to the crime of vehicular manslaughter, both direct and indirect. Each week the view diminished, the city slowly disappearing behind a monstrous swath of grey concrete. Can’t think of a structure much more obscene, holding cells for what makes us get there faster. And where did that urge even come from? Everyone who’s anyone knowing the journey is what matters.

Time moves on and I look around to see everyone waiting, wondering if the next step is up or down. She guesses that there’s something more. But it’s the finding it that tricks us all. I have laid down my arms before many a battle, and for that have left with scars in places I only know.

At the end of one such battle, I stood in a wedge of life amongst a wider field of death. There I watched new lives in the midst of discovery. We marveled at each other and I in my disbelief grew soft and still. For despite the asphalt jaws slavering and gnashing around it, this place provided a haven for what I love. Facing everyday that which I did not ask for, that which has been cast upon me, that which was fashioned before me, my throat grows tight and I want to flee. But instead I sit and trace, unsteady, around the blurry borders of my muddled thoughts.

I struggle to crane my neck and stretch myself out, out, just far enough out beyond the band of thieves on my heels. I try to head for the open places, away from the corners, away from the blacktop. I try, but I don’t always succeed.

When I finally step out into the yellow light, I pause on the bridge and hear the kingfisher rattle. I wait and watch for my reward. He shoots up and out then, a sleek bullet streaking across the tracks and back down under the bridge on the other side, his wild cries splintering the air around me.

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by sean on May 19, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in breathing rights, life, parts of the whole

Posted by sean on May 19, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/05/19/indirection/

at the fort

we walked along the edges of the marsh, picking our way through what the dirty harbor water washes up of the hideous effluvia of humanity, anything that might float, the plastic outcasts of society. i tried not to look down, to keep my heart from breaking again, to stifle the bile rising in my throat. we were there to look for birds, and we found some. swallows, sparrows, robins, gulls, herons, ospreys, orioles, a few warblers. it was another wednesday night walk at the fort. drier this time, but windier. birds wisely seek shelter from the wind and the constant rustling of leaves makes the trees look alive with bird activity, even when they are not. conditions were thus less than ideal. still, a good time was had.

tomorrow i’m going somewhere new and different to look for birds. i continue to wring this month dry while it lasts.

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by sean on May 14, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in birds, horror of humanity, spring

Posted by sean on May 14, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/05/14/at-the-fort/

migration

Spring migration has been keeping me pretty busy. Up early before work for an hour of birding here and there, then back out in the evening if I’m not too worn out. On the weekends, trying for more extended trips, like last Sunday’s all-day adventure at Blackwater NWR. So many Bald Eagles!! Yesterday had a banner day at a new local spot I’d heard such great things about. It did not disappoint. And the rain could not dampen my jubilant spirits. A definite highlight was the Summer Tanager. A stunning bird, for certain. When not birding, I’ve been probing current disillusionment with my day job. Also reading Proust. And Joseph Campbell. They complement each other nicely, actually. Listening to a lot of Bill Callahan, aka Smog. Generally enjoying the spring weather and spending as little time inside as is required by my unfortunate need to exchange time for paper that has value and can be traded for things such as shelter and food…I think you’ve heard this all before.

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by sean on May 3, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in birds, joseph campbell, marcel proust, spring

Posted by sean on May 3, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/05/03/migration/