saturday, december 6 10 am - J. drew lanham:”Sparrow envy”

MURMURATIONS:

A wave of dark birds

Surges

A black feathered river

Rustles

Flows on eventide

Undulates tree-line to horizon

Soot-washed

Smudged on day-failing sky

Does full moon’s waning

Pull restless flock to rost?

Shortening time fails its own patience

To offer response

As heart glow pulses brighter in bettering cold.

How to adore birds:

  1. Love and appreciate all things with feathers.

  2. Everyone has bird story. EVERYONE.

  3. Never forget the beauty in the common thing. Take time to recognize the subtle differences in cardinal crest perkiness or crow blackness.

  4. Slow down. Absorb birds.

  5. Every bird is a life bird. Every time. The first time or the thousandth time. If you’re breathing when you see a bird, it’s a lifer.

  6. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Birding is an imperfect craft wrought with ego mines. You will make mistakes. The birds know who they are. If you misidentify them, they don’t really care.

  7. List birds with your heart. You’ll never forget them when writing in blood with pulse.

  8. Keep a life list of people and places. See beyond your binoculars to understand context and culture. This breeds empathy. Empathy breeds care. Care breeds love.

  9. Be the bird. See the miracle in each and every one of them. Conservation is the act of caring so intensely for something that you want only the best for its survival and future being. That intense care and love, is called conservation.

  10. Find a way to share of not just birds - but nature - with others. Even better if the ones shared with don’t share your skin color, or ethnicity, or gender/non gender designation or religion or….

  11. Don’t be the birder that causes others to say, “Now that’s why I don’t bird.” We don’t need more birding police keeping track of missed IDs on fall flycatchers and third year gulls.

  12. Don’t be afraid to fall in love with a bird. It’s perfectly legal in most states - except maybe Mississippi. I’m not asking you to do anything freaky. Just focus on a bird… for a few minutes, an hour or two - maybe those moments become days and weeks and… Next thing you know your life is birdful!

  13. HAVE FUN AND WATCH WITH A PURPOSE! Take it all in… Boulders, butterflies, birds… understand at the end of the day your life will be filled with much more than birds.