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/

morbidly beautiful

“Permanent Smile” by Bill Callahan (aka Smog) is one of the more powerful songs about death that I’ve heard. I couldn’t find a video of him performing it on the YouTubes, and reading the lyrics alone doesn’t do the song its full justice, but here they are anyway…

Oh God, can you feel the sun in your back?
Oh God, can you see your shadow, inky black on the sand?
Oh God, can you hear the saltwater drying on your skin?
Oh God, can you feel my heart beating in my tongue?

Oh God, by being quiet, I hope to alleviate my death
Oh God, by sitting still, I hope to lighten your load
When your shadow covers me from head to toe
Curtain every flies, tell me it’s mine, my time to go

Seven waves of insects make babies in, in my skin
Seven waves of insects make families in my skin
(It’s just like animals) It’s just like animals that play
And the flesh…flesh…flesh…rotted off my skull
And then I will have earned my permanent, my permanent smile

Oh God, I never, never asked why
Oh God, I never, never asked why

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by sean on April 29, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in bill callahan, circle of life, death, lyrics, smog, songs

Posted by sean on April 29, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/04/29/morbidly-beautiful/

Unmarked

Before, we sat and stared out at the trees. Making food and making conversation. Food and shelter, the clothes upon my back, and a reason to spend the day otherwise. Because, as Annie Dillard says, you can’t take it with you. These days like coins dropping through an unseen hole in your pocket, clinking along the pavement and rolling into the gutter. Those days unspent, in rolls packed tight by the merciless crushing machinery around us. To disengage is to appear a failure in the soulless eyes of those watching you. To walk away is to sew that hole up, to turn your pockets inside out in defiance. In dreams I sink my hands into a deep sea of wild minutes and hours, their flashing sides unmarked by the greasy brand of a dollar sign. They swim untamed and free and I slip from the shore into their midst, shake off my rusty shackles and float away into the golden light.

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by sean on April 24, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in annie dillard, parts of the whole, time

Posted by sean on April 24, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/04/24/unmarked/

escape

Flew out of the city like bandit bears with a swarm of angry bees on our tails. At the top of a mountain, pitched the tent only to return an hour later to find another tent pitched next to it, despite the many other available sites nearby. It gets harder and harder to escape humanity. But, alas, this was not a backpack-into-the-middle-of-nowhere situation and, after all, on the first truly nice warm weekend of the spring after an unpleasantly cold winter, what can one actually expect. Surely not solitude with nature when still so relatively close to representations of civilization. Surely not the absence of every last vestige of human life. Surely not that. What one can expect, however, is depraved college-age youth yelling and carousing until the wee hours of the morning. Yes, one can count on one’s expectations in that regard to indeed be met. Even in the midst of such pure and innocent natural beauty, the horror of humanity awaits us.

I shoved all that to the back of my head, though, and we made the best of it. For example, I saw a Brown Creeper! I was excited about that. Chipping Sparrows engaged in esoteric mating rituals. Northern Flickers abounded. And on an isolated Sunday morning hike at Catoctin we met a couple of spry older men in training for their hike of Mount Kilimanjaro next month! It was a pleasure to engage in dialogue with such good folks, and it wove back together a few tattered shreds of our hope in humanity, which had been subjected to such vicious thrashing of late.

Bike parking at Catoctin:

1 Comment

by sean on April 20, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in birds, brown creeper, camping, hiking, horror of humanity, human behavior, isolation, solitude

Posted by sean on April 20, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/04/20/escape/

mixed messages

Fact: it is illegal to ride your bike on the sidewalk here.

Fact: people have been issued tickets for this offense.

Fact: it is illegal here for a cyclist not to stop at a stop sign or red light.

Fact: the other day I was riding home from work and saw a police officer directing traffic up ahead at a light that I usually run. So I opted to pause and wait for it to change. However, a young woman riding her bike on the sidewalk in the same direction that I was riding reached the intersection and was waved through it by the cop!

Not only did the cop see her riding on the sidewalk and did nothing about it, but she also waved her through a red light!

What is the point of these so-called laws then when they are not enforced and, in fact, violation of them is even encouraged by law enforcement officers?

Fact: Idaho has a law on the books that says a cyclist is permitted to roll through a red light or stop sign provided the intersection is clear.

All states and cities should have this law. It is ridiculous that a cyclist should have to wait at a light or stop sign if they can pass safely through the intersection. One of the many benefits of cycling in the city is that you can get places quicker than a car. Part of this involves running some red lights and stop signs. And I don’t buy the argument of drivers who say cyclists don’t deserve to be on the roads because they are generally irresponsible (e.g. run stop lights). I see drivers run lights and stop signs ALL THE TIME. But a 2-ton hunk of steel moving through an intersection at 30 mph is WAY more dangerous than a 160 lb person on a 20 lb bike moving at 5 mph. If a cyclist wants to assume the personal risk, then they should be allowed to. But a driver is piloting a deadly weapon capable of killing a person and as such, should be subject to much stricter traffic laws.

This great animated video explains how the Idaho rolling stop law works.

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by sean on April 16, 2009 • Permalink

Posted in bike commuting, common sense, cycling, laws and legislation

Posted by sean on April 16, 2009

https://sd-stewart.com/2009/04/16/mixed-messages/