All posts in category birds

field report: woodpecker redux

Recent intelligence gathering indicated the presence of a group of likely overwintering red-headed woodpeckers, including two adults, at another park in the area so I went to investigate. Again I found them immediately, as they were actively foraging and calling frequently. Their ‘rattle’ call is quite distinctive and often precedes a visual ID. Lighting was more favorable today, so here are a few photos accompanying a report on my findings.

Adult Red-headed Woodpecker at North Point State Park, © 2015 S. D. Stewart

Adult Red-headed Woodpecker strikes the classic woodpecker pose at Black Marsh, North Point State Park.

Adult Red-headed Woodpecker at Black Marsh, North Point State Park.

Red-headed Woodpecker at North Point State Park, © 2015 S. D. Stewart

An immature Red-headed Woodpecker glares at the photographer, North Point State Park.

After spending way too much time attempting to photograph the woodpeckers I continued on from the Black Marsh Wildlands into the rest of the park. First I took the Powerhouse Trail.

Powerhouse Trail at North Point State Park.

Rising up out of the woods before me came the trail’s namesake…

Powerhouse at North Point State Park.

The property that is now North Point State Park was formerly a local attraction known as the Bay Shore Amusement Park during the first half of the 20th Century, and there was streetcar service extending to the park from the city (extremely hard to imagine today in this rabidly car-centric region). This concrete monolith provided power to the streetcars. Now it serves as an informal art gallery for graffiti artists:

Inside the powerhouse at North Point State Park: ‘Find the roots of everything.’

After leaving the powerhouse I took a spur trail to gaze upon the Chesapeake Bay.

Chesapeake Bay from North Point State Park, © 2015 S. D. Stewart

Chesapeake Bay from overlook at North Point State Park.

Friendly people had left sand art on the beach.

Sand art at North Point State Park, © 2015 S. D. Stewart

Friendly people were here…

After scanning the Bay for waterfowl and only finding a few bufflehead and a single double-crested cormorant, I left the park and drove farther down the peninsula to where it dead ends at Fort Howard, the former coastal artillery headquarters for Baltimore. Fort Howard has a rich military history, which I will not go into here but you can certainly read about it to your heart’s content elsewhere on the internet. The park is rather bedraggled and largely unused, likely due to its remote location. But there are some nice spots. Of course I only photographed the horrible ones because that’s just how I am.

Brandon Shores Generating Station, © 2015 S. D. Stewart

The Brandon Shores Generating Station, viewed from Fort Howard. A 2011 NRDC report based on EPA data described it as releasing the second highest amount of toxic air pollutants annually in the U.S.

Despite the glaring lack of visitors, there are more picnic tables and trash cans at Fort Howard than I’ve seen at any other park. I was curious about the trailer in the photo below but simultaneously afraid so I chose not to get any closer. I thought if I called the number someone might be willing to divulge the contents but then this person would have my phone number. So I didn’t call. I find that life is an ongoing process of weighing the pros and cons of situations like this.

Scenic picnic area where I chose not to consume my lunch. (Note: if you call the number please leave a comment below.)

After passing the scenic picnic area I came upon this:

Menacing…

Again, I wasn’t sure what to do here. Were they keeping women locked inside or barring them from entry. I couldn’t tell, but I didn’t hear any cries for help and without bolt cutters there was not much I could have done. So I left. No doubt this decision will haunt me for quite some time…

4 Comments

by sean on December 5, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in artwork, baltimore, birding, birds, escape, field reports, fridays, hiking, mysteries, nature, observation, photography, place, red-headed woodpecker, self-medication, solitude, somewhere else, trees, woodpeckers

Posted by sean on December 5, 2015

https://sd-stewart.com/2015/12/05/field-report-woodpecker-redux/

red-headed woodpecker

Red-headed woodpeckers are uncommon to rare in my area and declining in general throughout their range due to habitat loss and changes in availability of their food supply (primarily tree nuts). However, over the past few years they have become more prevalent around here as an overwintering species. A handful of them now typically show up each winter, scattered around the region. Earlier this week one was seen at a local park, in the same exact spot where another one had spent the winter a few years ago. The interesting thing is that both birds were immature birds, meaning they could not have been the same individual. So, somehow this second bird found this same spot, and chose to use what I’m pretty sure is the same tree for food caching. I went over to the park today and immediately found the bird, after running into a fellow birder who had just seen it. The sky was overcast, so the photos didn’t come out that great, but here are a few nonetheless. Once the bird finishes molting into its adult plumage it will have a bright red head and solid white patches on its wings, instead of the brownish head and black-spotted white patches seen here. In the last photo there are a few red feathers visible in the throat/upper breast.

Red-headed Woodpecker (immature)

2 Comments

by sean on November 28, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in birding, birds, photography, red-headed woodpecker, woodpeckers

Posted by sean on November 28, 2015

https://sd-stewart.com/2015/11/28/red-headed-woodpecker/

yellow-bellied sapsuckers

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, © 2015 S. D. Stewart

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – immature male, indicated by red feathers beginning to show in throat

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – adult male seen in backyard through otherworldly mist

2 Comments

by sean on November 27, 2015 • Permalink

Posted in birds, mist, photography, woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsucker

Posted by sean on November 27, 2015

https://sd-stewart.com/2015/11/27/yellow-bellied-sapsuckers/

crows on a fence

7 Comments

by sean on October 13, 2015 • Image • Permalink

Posted in american crow, birds, photography

Posted by sean on October 13, 2015

https://sd-stewart.com/2015/10/13/crows-on-a-fence/

ravine trail

The new trail opens up the wildest area in this urban forest oasis. Clusters of mushroom sprout from the center of the path. Few have walked here yet. It is high summer and the wood thrush yet sings. Cicadas offer up a constant backing drone. Point of fact: dogs don’t process the switchback concept. It conflicts with their innate knowledge of the shortest distance rule. As the trail climbs from the deepest shaded low point, the morning heat barges uninvited into the cool air space. Sounds of the nearby freeway intrude. As I struggle to adapt, a certain chorus tears through my head in response. This walk is soon over.

2 Comments

by sean on July 31, 2015 • Permalink

Posted by sean on July 31, 2015

https://sd-stewart.com/2015/07/31/ravine-trail/

somewhere else

Dallas

Sunset

American White Pelicans
(with Am. Coot in background)

Bonus Photo (note: closer to home than above)

To the Lighthouse (V.W.)

Somewhere Else (SE) constitutes a removal of oneself from fixed behavior chains, thought patterns, and/or emotional states. SE does not necessitate a change in physical place, although such a change can certainly strike flame to tinder.

(Photos taken with crappy cell phone camera. Pelican photo taken through binocular lens.)

2 Comments

by sean on November 19, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in american white pelican, city life, dallas, lighthouses, somewhere else, sun, texas, the rest of the country, tuesdays are generally neutral, vacation, virginia woolf

Posted by sean on November 19, 2013

https://sd-stewart.com/2013/11/19/somewhere-else-3/

disordered chronology of movement

Failed recollections to begin with. Slow-creeping toward habit. A giant round metal head. Sudden velocity. Sudden inertia. Pavement merges with gravel. The emergence of a tentative consciousness, neither hard nor pebbly. Vexation of unidentified raptors. Vultures soar over open sore in ground. A blast. Winged assassins. New commonness of thrashers in the street. Feet to pedals. The river like a swollen artery choked with plaque. Ungroundedness. Slow mounting keen of a train not far off. Dream rivulets running off a dry and calloused cerebellum. The importance of a second floor. Eye contact with strangers. Avoid building awareness of a presence. A body imagined close, a body far off yet close, a body buried in dry soil, a body husking a soul. A dipping line, looming and drawing back, tangled in the hanging moss of a halting lifetime.

II.

The exultant dismissal of everything. A hitching-up of trouser legs above this rising level of foreign liquidity. A spreading out tempered by a wish to gather in. Weathering. Rusty rooftop with greenery. The futile accomplishment of deletion. Southern hospitality. Sensory overload. Sensory deprivation. Every atom split to populate a neverending shell game run by con artists connotating the building blocks of life. It’s so casual is what it feels like. An unseemly seeming accidental existence. And yet people fly planes. Against near-white skies. This is a reason not to listen to all the best songs in a row. This is the reason time means nothing. Look out, the fuse is lit. See how it sputters, this heat seen and heard, racing on its journey to a black-powder shattered shack. Every early morning blink of a first-opened eye, this fuse is lit. And wetted fingertips flutter to pinch it out quick.

III.

Bird on a wire, sing your song, lift your wing to the world. Swoop down and over this set of fleet footprints filled in long ago. Expectations of nothing can never be unfulfilled. It’s a something-nothing to believe in, at least. An anti-ideal to carry stuck beneath an idealist’s forever-sweating armpit. Relish the freedom of solitude in public places. Deny detours diverting detritus. Pick it up, handle it, determine meaning and value, discard when done. Don’t look back but for inspiration. Forward motion fuels freedom. Reminders come free.

2 Comments

by sean on June 19, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in aether, anonymuncule flies into the sun, birds, breathing rights, cycling, dreams, elaborating on the never happening, escape, everything is in everything, friends, giant things, i feel vagulous don't you, i'm glowing don't touch me, in-between, isolation, it's always the smallest things that catch in your throat and fill you with a bit of light, it's the end of the song play it again, lassitude, learning to fold the map of my avoidance techniques, let's all synchronize our watches to 00:00, let's pretend everything is new again, memory, nothing, other things, parts of the whole, philosophastering, real-time dilution of a previously useful system of categorization, restlessness, rivers, rootlessness, south carolina, stream of whateverness, summer, swirly patterns, the antidote is also the poison, travel, wednesdays are weird, where are all the decoder rings

Posted by sean on June 19, 2013

https://sd-stewart.com/2013/06/19/disordered-chronology-of-movement/

rain crow has landed

Printing in progress!

After a five-year hiatus, I made a new zine. This manuscript was first conceived for a chapbook contest that I did not win. Rather than continue to run hither and thither for possibly years on end with Rain Crow clenched in my clackity-clack claws, prostrating myself before the micro-press literati, I decided to publish it myself, just like I have always done. Regarding the content, it has all appeared here in this space in one form or another. So, it’s possible regular readers may not be interested. However, in its defense, it does feature illustrations and a handmade cover. Reading words in print has also been proven to cause less eye strain than reading them on screen, according to an unscientific study conducted by a known “damned bastard of a cloud-monger” (Baudelaire’s words, not mine).

Orders can be placed through PayPal (from this page) or by old-fashioned cash through the post (if anyone does that anymore). I am also open to TRADES. While I hope to recoup at least some of my printing and postage costs, I am definitely interested if you have something to barter in exchange. This can be artwork, writing, music, or any other kind of creative eruption. It does not have to be a zine. It can be some hand-scrawled poems you wrote while waiting for the bus. In fact, that might even be better than a zine.

~~If you want to send a trade (or cash), send me a message so we can trade addresses.~~

Order by PayPal here. If you have a color preference from the photo above, please make note of it in the order form. All colors are limited and others are yet to be printed, so there are no guarantees, but I’ll do my best.

SOLD OUT! Maybe check Quimby’s.

5 Comments

by sean on May 31, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in black-billed cuckoo, rain crow, writing, zines

Posted by sean on May 31, 2013

https://sd-stewart.com/2013/05/31/rain-crow-has-landed/

scatterings

i like to see chaos subsumed into order. long grass growing tangled then trimmed. but only in certain places, like next to sidewalks, not in parks where i am walking. no, not there. not when i am sitting facing a field and the man comes on his mower, chasing me away, following me through the park, more and more mower men, an onslaught of men joined in mechanised noise and motion. that is what i don’t like. i like to see spread-out papers form themselves into a neat pile or disappear into the recycle bin. bare surfaces. something emptied and discarded. this is not a manifesto, by the way. this is just a monday morning [note: it’s actually now wednesday—ed.]. a morning i rode in rain. traffic altered my route and i passed the central police station, a thriving death star hive, battered tie fighters buzzing in and out from the flight deck, looking to crush, to destroy, to subjugate the populace, meting out their brutal mutilated form of “justice” with truncheons and guns.

last friday was a special day for i heard my first wood thrush of the year. o, how i love the ethereal songs of the thrushes! there is no sweeter music in the forest for me. i used to wake to their flute music every spring and early summer morning, but no more, no more. now, if lucky, it is the much lesser song of another thrush, the ubiquitous robin. not to disparage the robin, but his song is nowhere near as transcendent as the wood thrush, the hermit thrush, the swainson’s thrush…

yesterday i went to a class that was like jungian personality types but with colors and a few more bells and whistles. i am blue-green and my conflict sequence moves from green to blue to red. there are all these diagrams that look like someone made them with a spirograph. they are quite pretty but i don’t know how i feel about being plotted on a triangular graph. there i am…a black dot straddling the line between two types, far off from my fellows (in the group report, i am a clear outlier, there are no other dots near me). there i am…moving across the color scheme as conflict escalates, crossing axes with impunity. look at me go…

8 Comments

by sean on May 1, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in bike commuting, birds, breathing rights, human behavior, human nature, mondays, neuro-nonsense, paper management, parts of the whole, pointless, police, proceedings of the society for the eradication of mower men, rain, strength deployment inventory, this is the explanation of a tuesday, tuesdays are generally neutral, wednesdays are weird, wood thrush, work

Posted by sean on May 1, 2013

https://sd-stewart.com/2013/05/01/scatterings/

the smallness of saving

there are, of course, those early spring moments, late in the day, after a cold front has passed through and left the air clean and clear, and the yellow light bursts through the young lower leaves of the cottonwood tree as they sway in the cool breeze, and it looks like a crowd of people waving with kindness, pure of truth and dazzled with light, while above, the horizontal rooftops bisect the sky, and the crabapple tree looks its best, wearing the white finery of full bloom, and the birds hurry from all around to perch in its boughs as the yellow light falls across them, making them look so proud. and the feeling this brings may last just a few seconds, a minute or two at most, but it is saving, a saving feeling rippling through a body.

4 Comments

by sean on April 23, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in birds, cottonwood, crabapple, hope, light, saving, spring, trees, truth and light

Posted by sean on April 23, 2013

https://sd-stewart.com/2013/04/23/the-smallness-of-saving/