That which awaits the photographer in pursuit of nature shots.

(Prompted by the current prominence of goslings.)

Shit List; Or Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity

 You'll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are:
gosling shit (which J.
 Williams said something
was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout

shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit,
sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit
(awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit,

horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar shit (so many dark
kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby rhinoceros
shit, splashy jaybird shit, mockingbird shit

(dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin shit that
oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts,
chicken shit and chicken mite shit, pelican shit, gannet

shit (wholesome guano), fly shit (periodic), cockatoo
shit, dog shit (past catalog or assimilation),
cricket shit, elk (high plains) shit, and

tiny scribbled little shrew shit, whale shit (what
a sight, deep assumption), mandril shit (blazing
blast off), weasel shit (wiles' waste), gazelle shit,

magpie shit (total protein), tiger shit (too acid
to contemplate), moral eel and manta ray shit, eerie
shark shit, earthworm shit (a soilure), crab shit,

wolf shit upon the germicidal ice, snake shit, giraffe
shit that accelerates, secretary bird shit, turtle
shit suspension invites, remora shit slightly in

advance of the shark shit, hornet shit (difficult to
assess), camel shit that slaps the ghastly dry
siliceous, frog shit, beetle shit, bat shit (the

marmoreal), contemptible cat shit, penguin shit,
hermit crab shit, prairie hen shit, cougar shit, eagle
shit (high totem stuff), buffalo shit (hardly less

lofty), otter shit, beaver shit (from the animal of
alluvial dreams)—a vast ordure is a broken down
cloaca—macaw shit, alligator shit (that floats the Nile

along), louse shit, macaque, koala, and coati shit,
antelope shit, chuck-will's-widow shit, alpaca shit
(very high stuff), gooney bird shit, chigger shit, bull

shit (the classic), caribou shit, rasbora, python, and
razorbill shit, scorpion shit, man shit, laswing
fly larva shit, chipmunk shit, other-worldly wallaby

shit, gopher shit (or broke), platypus shit, aardvark
shit, spider shit, kangaroo and peccary shit, guanaco
shit, dolphin shit, aphid shit, baboon shit (that leopards

induce), albatross shit, red-headed woodpecker (nine
inches long) shit, tern shit, hedgehog shit, panda shit,
seahorse shit, and the shit of the wasteful gallinule.

And here is another gosling, this time playing the Color Etudes by Phillip Ramey, gosling green comes to mind….

The Goldfinch

When dandelions star the fields
Another alien singer, I,
Nursed upon England’s flowery wealds,
Seeking no tithe of treasured yields,
dropp sudden from a summer sky
To where the spangled clearing spills
Its gold about your timbered hills.

A mite in splendid motley clad,
I mark the field, I know the hour
When choicest morsels may be had;
When blooms are gay, when days are glad,
And thistledown wafts in a shower
To dance and drift and disappear,
I, who was not, am with you here.

I cling beside the thistle head,
I dance about your cattle’s feet,
I revel in the banquet spread
By many a blazing yellow bed,
And feast until I am replete;
Then seek the house roof’s topmost tile
To linger yet a little while.

No ingrate I, no niggard churl
Tho’ what I take you well may spare
Ere azure skies have grown to pearl,
With many a grace-note, many a skirl,
I pay gold coin for golden fare,
And profer an abundant fee
In long sweet bursts of melody.

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis(7 September 1876 – 22 June 1938 / Auburn, South Australia)

There’s Hope

Bird Photography, Classical Music, Politics
Mar 19, 2019
3 Comments

Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake. Walter Benjamin

I want to think nothing but optimistic thoughts today, so the pride of place goes to the kids who organized #FridaysforFuture, #climatestrike.

These Photos of Kids Protesting Climate Change All Over the World Will Give You Hope for the Future

I skipped “school” last Friday as well and went for an extended walk through bird territory, grateful for nature as we can still experience it.

Another reason for hope: The government of New Zealand is contemplating further and forceful restrictions in their gun laws after the Christchurch mosque massacre last Friday. https://www.vox.com/2019/3/15/18267093/new-zealand-gun-control-laws-christchurch-mosque-shooting

And finally: time travel exists, after all!!!

Well, sort of. In music. Or our understanding of music across time….. listen to Jeremy Denk’s newest album that covers 7 centuries of classical music, from c.1300-c.2000…….

The interview linked to below gives a glimpse into fascinating insights of how music evolved.

https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2019/03/16/703799425/jeremy-denks-musical-odyssey-through-7-centuries-of-music

Here you can listen to one of my favorite Brahms’s intermezzos:

https://www.nonesuch.com/journal/listen-jeremy-denk-brahms-piece-forthcoming-album-c-1300-c-2000-2018-01-08

and a wonderfully annotated rendition of 2 Goldberg variations:

I know, today’s offerings are all over the map, but they all made me feel better. As did that walk on Friday at the Steigerwald Nature Preserve, with photographs to show for….

And birds who tried not to show at all..

The Sparrow(s)

Sparrows seem to be a popular topic for poetry. From Catullus to Keats, Bill Collins to Charles Bukowski they appear as various symbols – with the added twist of many of these poets citing each other.

My choice for today, though, is a writer I introduced some time before – Paul Laurence Dunbar who was one of the first black poets to rise to national fame in the late 1800s. You’ll remember him from “When the caged bird sings….”

I was reminded this morning that the poem’s message to heed what is important is anything but trite or outdated. Ady Barkan, Yale Law School graduate and a fighter for social justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, is in hospital. I have followed his work for some time, unaware until recently that he is dying from ALS and writing basically with eye movement commands these days. In his early 30s, a few years older than my own sons and already a father.

The message this morning was personal compared to his usual politics: “If you have your health, I urge you to cherish it every day. Say thanks for it, and never take it for granted. Make the best use you can of your brief time on this earth. Do today what will make you proud tomorrow, proud on your deathbed.”

I find myself uttering it often, to myself and others, oh, think of what’s really important, carpe diem, etc. Writing about it today because I MEAN IT, and want to honor people who’ve been in environments of Jim Crow or on their deathbed having the strength to remind us all. Even we, perhaps privileged mortals all, can make significant choices. And we should.

End of sermon.

Here is Janequin’s Bird Song:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=51&v=x-dkdgzYZbQ

And here is the real thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdaE7eaayKM

Photographs are from last Friday’s explosion of sparrows out in the sunshine: White crested, golden crested, house and song sparrows abounded.

A Journey in Sound

If you are like me your household chores have suffered across the holidays. (Not the holidays’ fault but my indulgence in an extra dose of Netflix – I am here to report that I have progressed from November’s Chinese Soap Opera, via -terrific- Korean historic fiction, Turkish fantasy -forgettable except for the footage on Istanbul which recalled wonderful memories- to a German horror movie. Yes, keep your reaction to yourself. I already live with enough raised eyebrows around here…. )

That said, the pile of ironing is waiting, and what better than to tackle it while listening to the sounds of another country that I will never see, but want to know more about.

The BBC has this terrific series called Documentary, and in one segment Alastair Leithead, the BBC’s Africa Correspondent, takes you on an epic adventure in sound across the Democratic Republic of Congo. He basically narrates his trip (I assume only possible because they plunged mega bucks on guards and guides and audio crew, quite frankly) but also records all the sounds during his journey. It is fascinating.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06vm1jd

Congo has, of course been in the news – if certain US government officials watched anything other than FOX they might even get ideas: another way to suppress voting by undesirable constituencies? Claim it is too dangerous for public health! Details here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-election/vote-delayed-in-three-congo-opposition-districts-wont-count-toward-presidential-result-idUSKCN1OP0J9

I am not kidding, either. The second worst outbreak in history of the dreaded Ebola disease has been used as justification by outgoing President Kabila and his cronies to decree that three opposition strongholds will not be allowed to vote until March – when swearing in of the newly elected president – the elections are this Sunday – will take place in January.

If you have not yet read or long forgotten (unlikely) Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, it is your best introduction to the history of the Congo, in a novel that has some of the strongest character development in recent memory. It is a beautiful and deeply moving book that also makes you aware of struggles that have not appeared in our history books. Or at least not mine.

.http://mentalfloss.com/article/62832/13-things-you-may-not-know-about-poisonwood-bible

For music today it will be Grand Maitre Franco singing Attention Na Sida (he died of complications from Aids in the late 80s, 2 years after he recorded this). The origin of the epidemic was in 1920s Kinshasa, now Democratic Republic of Congo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=156&v=OkfYs2_r1y8

My photographs are of flamingos, my approximation of visiting the tropics…. The Democratic Republic of Congo houses 4 species of those strange birds.

Cause for Caroling

I feel like that bedraggled, aging thrush of Hardy’s poem, who believes in hope in a world that is a rather dark place, then and now. Or who simply does what nature requires, doing what’s needed for survival, equipped for that with instincts that aim at continuity and consequently inspiring hope.

Hope it shall be, then, during a celebration of same that is called Christmas.

The Darkling Thrush

BY THOMAS HARDY

I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
      The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

Photographs of owls, sparrow and finches.

Now where do I find my blast-beruffled plume?

Persuading

In the mid 1980s I worked as an RA for Leon Festinger, one of the giants in the field of social psychology, and as demanding a boss as they come. Chain smoking through our occasional lunches, he would grow irritated if I tried to pin him down with requests to hear more about the times he studied cults by pretending to be a member, building his theory of cognitive dissonance.

He had at my time turned his back on his earlier bodies of work as an experimental psychologist and was exploring completely new domaines. He studied archeological sites and data collections which led him to speculate about the nature of early man and the structure of primitive societies, summarized in The Human Legacy in 1983.

Eventually he became passionate about the history of religion and its implication for the development and acceptance of technology. Comparing two societies, alternatively dominated by the Eastern and the Roman church, he analyzed material technology and what it meant for political and national development, in particular warfare. Consider the adoption of the stirrup, for example, the foothold that allows a rider to be safely and in balance positioned on horseback. If you don’t have to cling with your arms to the horse’s neck, why, you could use them for all kinds of belligerent actions, holding swords, throwing spears, you name it, giving you a distinct advantage on the battle field. (The stirrup, by the way, was invented in China and made its way to the West in the early 8th century, something we know both from archeological data and medieval art.) These kinds of technological inventions and adaptations are fostered in forwards looking societies, leaving others, quite literally, in the dust, as we can see with the decline of the Byzantium.

Here is an old obituary by his friend Stan Schachter – Leon died in 1989. https://motherjones.com/files/lfestinger.pdf

All this came back to me when I read the article linked below about cult membership, Trump and the Republican party, which introduces Festinger’s earlier research, to get eventually to the bigger question of how one gets people out of these cults, persuading them to change their views and question their identity.

I am not sure I agree with the approach the author offers in consultation with renowned scholars of peace and conflict resolution. Many of them recommend a community-based approach (after modeling of the Irish initiatives that laid the groundwork for peace in that divided country: “Important work to overcome divides is done at the grassroots level—through NGOs, religious initiatives, social service programs, schools, at the workplace, etc.,” …. “Civil society organizations that cut across identity borders can promote reconciliation and reduce conflict.”

That I can see as a requirement for success, and I can see how it works when the feuding parties are on somewhat equal footing. What, though, when one party has been oppressed to the point of being dehumanized, and is now expected to reach out a hand to the oppressor who deems himself a victim these days? I don’t know how to reconcile that with the racism and anti-Semitism that is the basis for the identity formations for the 25% of our population that adheres to the White Supremacy cult. Would you have asked Jews to start reconciliation groups in Germany after the war, or Blacks in SouthAfrica, reaching out a hand to those who approved of their murder? Hard reading below:

https://newrepublic.com/article/152638/escape-trump-cult

Photographs todays are of sandhill cranes seen last week on their long, long journeys to the South. Maybe we can also travel some distances in this country bridging the canyons that divide us.

One for the birds, again…..

My grandfather was a small, musical man, his stand-up bass looming over him, or so it looked from the perspective of a small child. We rarely visited, but the visits were full of wonder and never more so than when he took us out on walks through the heather, forest and flats of Lower-Saxony. He knew all the bird sounds and was able to imitate them with his precise whistling, making music as we walked. He taught me about thrushes, robins and black birds, chickadees and woodpeckers, wrens, cuckoos and nightingales. I learned that there was a repertoire of communication among birds, from mating to warning to war fare, not unlike our own.

Listening to bird sounds, then, is a big source of joy for me; the first melodic ones in spring in the garden, or the rare, high pitched ones that hint at the presence of raptors when I am out on my jaunts, and now, in fall, the choruses of migrating flocks.

The migration of birds is in full swing – I thought it would be fun to share some of what I saw last week, and provide some recordings of what I heard. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a wonderful source – most of what is below I found there.

Here are the Canada geese which really are around all year, but seem to flock in masses during fall.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Canada_Goose/sounds

“Various loud honks, barks, and cackles. Also some hisses.”

Then there are their cousins, the snow geese. This goose breeds north of the timberline in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and the northeastern tip of Siberia, and spends winters in warm parts of North America from southwestern British Columbia through parts of the United States to Mexico. They fly as far south as Texas and Mexico during winter, and return to nest on the Arctic tundra each spring – says Wikipedia. I always feel particularly happy when I encounter them, since they remind me of one of my favorite children’s book: The wonderful adventures of Nils Holgersson by Selma Lagerlöf. A little misbehaving boy is shrunk and travels across Sweden on the back of a snow goose, having all sorts of adventures and providing the young readers, unawares, with a geography and biology lesson.

Then there were these huge flocks of ducks. I believe they were pintails, but am not sure, was too far away. They are shy creatures.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Pintail/sounds

Throughout the year, male Northern Pintails give a short burst that sounds similar to a wheezy trainlike whistle. Females often make a rough stuttering quack similar to a Mallard.

And finally, my favorite of them all, the cranes. Not only are they beautiful, almost regal in their steady flight, but they have these amazing dances, of courtship or in territorial defense, where they seem to defy gravity, jumping high in the air with barely a lift of the wings, signaling muscle power that my limp, aging body can only dream of.

The link below gives you a glimpse of their toughness, engaging with black bears:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-NQgobvz40

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Sandhill_Crane/sounds

Sandhill Cranes give loud, rattling bugle calls, each lasting a couple of seconds and often strung together. They can be heard up to 2.5 miles away and are given on the ground as well as in flight, when the flock may be very high and hard to see. They also give moans, hisses, gooselike honks, and snoring sounds. Chicks give trills and purrs.

Here they are in flight:

Don’t you wish you could just travel with them? They are calling…..

Sympathy

I know why the caged bird sings….I first “heard” these words in a piece of music – Buckshot Lefonque’s version to be precise.

Only later did I realize it was an actual poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, published in 1899; the phrase I cited above might be familiar to some as the title of Maya Angelou’s autobiography.

Here is the whole poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46459/sympathy-56d22658afbc0

And here is an excerpt:

Dunbar died at age 33 in 1906. He was gifted, achieved recognition during his life time, but also troubled, in ill health and caught in a political trap. The public wanted his humorous, sometimes sentimental accounts of Black life during and after slavery written in dialect, and showed disdain for his descriptions of violence and injustice. To sell his works and make it as a writer, critics claim he resorted to caricaturing his own race, portraying black slaves as faithful and obedient, slow-witted but good-natured workers appreciative of their benevolent white owners. Dunbar drew the ire of many critics for his stereotyped characters, and some of his detractors even alleged that he contributed to racist concepts while simultaneously disdaining such thinking. (See link below)

Many current scholars draw a more complex picture, pointing to his many ways of describing and attacking racism, more so in his poetry than his novels and story collections.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/paul-laurence-dunbar

The poem I chose is a lament, a painfully sad expression of all that is denied to the being deprived of its freedom.

Dunbar’s parents were slaves. The majority of their descendants live in different kinds of cages – being deprived of the rights to walk without fear, to chose where to live and be treated as equals. On the 50th anniversary of MLK’s assassination today I fear he is rolling in his grave.