We shit on our own feet,
trying anything to be cool.

We seek death out;
so we can live and grow.

We circle tragedy, hoping
to steal something from it.

We wobble when soaring;
balance requires adjustment.

We draw circles between clouds,
and patrol the land beneath.

We live in a world of cycles;
We ferry the dead to life.

—

This is inspired by Read Write Poem’s What Do You Believe (prompt #115). I say inspired because I didn’t use the suggested process. Instead, I started with the line “I believe in Vultures,” which was cut as the poem morphed into things vultures might believe.

This is also the latest entry in my Birds Nobody Loves series.

Wings
tremble

Cold front
falls gray from
northern skies

Dry fields ripple—
summer grass
now dead and brown
hides nothing

not even shadows
from the vulture
spiraling lower

waiting
waiting

for something
to freeze

When the end comes, don’t
plant me in the ground, trapped
in just one piece of earth.

Why not leave me by
the highway for the vultures
and maybe for the crows
who will take my sleeping eyes.

Then, at last, I could soar,
finally fly on dusky wings
outstretched,

buried in the sky.

—

“Lines Discovered in an Aging Ornithologist’s Field Journal” was one of 3 poems originally published at Thirteen Myna Birds in July 2009. Poems don’t stick around long over there before they fly away, so I’m posting them here for those who may have missed them back in July. This is 3 of 3. It has been slightly modified from its original form. The others can be found here and here.

I’m continuing to dabble with audio blogging, this time seeing how it goes reading one of my poems. I don’t know how often I’ll do this, but it was surprisingly easy to get the reading. I even edited a little bit since I liked the end of one take and the beginning of another.

I.

We drove out of Colorado Bend,
passed a dead tree full of Vultures.
It was hard to imagine anything
more perfect for a Texas morning.
That day, we believed in forever.
Even as we passed the vulture tree.

II.

Along the highways, vultures soar overhead,
shadows sharing asphalt with cars that run down
those shadows unnoticed by the drivers.
The vultures don’t miss anything.
They know we’ll be back this way.
They will wait, and in the meantime,
their wings will barely move.

III.

I saw a vulture with a secondary feather
bent backwards and up like the flap on an
airplane’s wing as it comes in for a landing.
The bird didn’t seem to mind the twisted feather.
When I saw him again, he was 15 miles down the road,
and I was on my way home.

IV.

I asked a birder if he’d seen anything interesting.
He spat on the ground, saliva sizzling on summer pavement.
Nothing. Just a bunch of buzzards.
The vultures ignored us and our binoculars, content
to trace their simple prophecy in the sky.

—

“Circling Vultures” was one of 3 poems originally published at Thirteen Myna Birds in July 2009. Poems don’t stick around long over there before they fly away, so I’m posting them here for those who may have missed them back in July. This is 2 of 3. It has been slightly modified from its original form.

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

During the second week of January 2009, while walking along the trail that runs down to the little pond in our neighborhood, I decided to make it a point to come out at least once a week and count birds to try to get a sense of what birds are in the neighborhood, when they’re here and how many I could see.

I jokingly called it my Pond Trail Big Year, mainly because I didn’t expect to see all that many birds on our little stretch of trail. It turned out to be more of a medium or even small-sized year, but still worth every moment. Keeping counts and lists is cool, but for me it’s more of a memory tool since I’ve never been terribly competitive about such things.

I managed to keep my commitment to birding the trail at least once per week, expect for a week in May when we were in Missouri and a week in August when we were working at Camp Periwinkle. In all, I counted 61 species on the pond trail and if I also include the birds I saw at my house and the birds I saw on the regional trail (with which the pond trail connects) leading to the lake where Double-crested Cormorants, Ring-billed Gulls and Greater Roadrunners can be seen, the number jumps to 67 birds seen on foot, which is a decent number, I think, for someone still learning to find birds.

Ring-billed Gull

It wasn’t long before I started paying attention to more than just the birds. There are trees, wildflowers, rabbits, turtles, deer, butterflies, snakes, and frogs out there. I started to try to pay more attention to those things as well, and it wasn’t long before I went beyond just birding to a different kind of seeing that seemed more a witnessing the little patch of nature just beyond my yard.

Blotched Water Snake

Some of my most memorable days include the day after one of our hailstorms when I saw an Osprey and a Black-and-white Warbler on the same day; the day I discovered the Blotched Water Snakes that live under the bridge; or the time I watched a Yellow-crowned Night Heron catch and kill a crawfish (which made me realize that being boiled alive is probably the easy way out for a crawfish compared to the hard way administered by the night heron).

American Robin

There were times, particularly during last summer’s especially brutal drought-ridden days of infernal heat, on which I had to force myself to get out, knowing I would see only grackles and vultures, but even that was fun since I really do like those birds quite a bit.

Turkey Vulture

I learned a lot about the seasonal migration patterns of my local birds. Things like when the different duck species come and go from the pond, which ones just pass through and which ones stay. I learned where to look for different kinds of birds and what to listen for and how to let my ears guide my eyes when trying to find something.

Ring-necked Ducks and Gadwalls

In addition to learning a lot about birding, I realized some things about the kind of birder I am. I rarely drive to go birding and when I do, it’s usually just to go somewhere else in Austin like Hornsby Bend. There’s something immensely satisfying about walking out one’s door and seeing the birds that live nearby. Considering the toll taken on all wildlife by cars and roads, birding by foot just seems a bit greener, and getting to know an area inspires a deeper understanding of a place that goes beyond the superficial. I think I’d rather know every bird in my neighborhood than see every bird in the state (which isn’t to say I don’t try to see as many birds as I can; rather, I’m just not going to kill myself—or anything else—to do it).

Other people joined me on these walks: my wife (quite frequently), my parents, my father-in-law, various houseguests. It was fun to be able to share some of the discoveries I’ve made, and those were some of my favorite walks.

Here’s the final 2009 Neighborhood Small Year list with stars next to the ones that were life birds:

1. Black-bellied Whistling-Duck *
2. Gadwall
3. American Wigeon *
4. Blue-winged Teal *
5. Northern Shoveler
6. Northern Pintail *
7. Ring-necked Duck *
8. Pied-billed Grebe *
9. Double-crested Cormorant
10. Great Blue Heron
11. Great Egret
12. Little Blue Heron
13. Green Heron
14. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
15. Black Vulture
16. Turkey Vulture
17. Osprey
18. Accipiter sp. *
19. Red-shouldered Hawk
20. American Coot
21. Killdeer
22. Ring-billed Gull
23. White-winged Dove
24. Mourning Dove
25. Greater Roadrunner
26. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
27. Black-chinned Hummingbird
28. Belted Kingfisher *
29. Red-bellied Woodpecker
30. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
31. Downy Woodpecker
32. Eastern Phoebe
33. Ash-throated Flycatcher *
34. Western Kingbird
35. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
36. Blue Jay
37. American Crow
38. Purple Martin
39. Barn Swallow
40. swallow sp.
41. Carolina Chickadee
42. Black-crested Titmouse
43. Carolina Wren
44. Bewick’s Wren
45. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
46. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
47. Eastern Bluebird
48. American Robin
49. Northern Mockingbird
50. European Starling
51. Cedar Waxwing
52. Orange-crowned Warbler *
53. Yellow-rumped Warbler *
54. Black-and-white Warbler *
55. Common Yellowthroat *
56. Chipping Sparrow
57. Song Sparrow *
58. Northern Cardinal
59. Red-winged Blackbird
60. Common Grackle
61. Great-tailed Grackle
62. Brown-headed Cowbird *
63. Baltimore Oriole *
64. House Finch
65. Lesser Goldfinch *
66. American Goldfinch
67. House Sparrow

I’m looking forward to my next walk. I’ll probably keep walking the trail weekly since I did that anyway, but if I don’t feel like it, I won’t. It will also be nice to enjoy walking without listing and counting, though I’ll still list occasionally and continue posting those numbers to ebird for whatever scientific value it may serve.

This was a good exercise for me, but I’m glad to be able to just get back to walking and enjoying the birds, which is what it’s supposed to be about anyway.

Update: This post was included in I and the Bird #118 at Ben Cruchan – Natural History.

The other day, I took a short walk down the neighborhood trail, pointing the camera down more than up. It was a gray and humid day that suggested rain but none ever really fell in our neighborhood. Even if it had, the drought would still be way ahead.

I really like this little bridge that connects two neighborhoods with the main trail. I’ve gotten a few nice shots looking downstream from it and sometimes I even see a few snakes hanging out nearby.

I probably should learn to ID some of the wildflowers around here. Until I do, though, they’re just going to have to be pretty white flowers. Whatever they are, they jumped out of the surrounding dry green like sparks.

There used to be a really nice log like this farther down the trail, but it’s gone now. Probably in someone’s house or on their porch. I hope this one goes unnoticed a little longer.

As dry as it’s been, you’d think the cacti would be loving it, but the prickly pears are suffering as much as everyone else. I saw more dried up and dead ones than usual.

A further reminder to learn the names of some flowers.

Somewhere in the archives of the City of Austin, there is probably a notation that could point some bureaucrat straight to this tree. I think the trees with numbers are the good ones.

I keep seeing this single bone in a clearing and finally took a picture of it. A mile farther down, I found a deer skeleton last spring. I wonder if this is part of the same.

There weren’t many birds out other than the Turkey Vultures, which I enjoy watching as they sail overhead.

Another of my vulture poems has flown into the world. Check out “Good Authority,” which was published at Bolts of Silk last week while I was out of town.

Two of my poems and a short prose piece were published yesterday over at Thirteen Myna Birds: “God Hates Grackles,” “Lines Discovered in an Aging Ornithologist’s Field Journal,” and “Circling Vultures.”  They are part of a series I’ve been working on about vultures and grackles called Birds Nobody Loves.

Poems don’t stay around long at Thirteen Myna Birds so check them out before they fly off into the ether. Be sure to look around and check out the other pieces in the current flight formation while you’re there as well.

In case you missed it, another poem from this series was published at Bolts of Silk last month (“My Tourist Yard“) and another, “Good Authority,” will appear there later this year.

Vultures are fun to watch. (But only when they’re flying.)