Monster Loves National Bird Day (Yum)
Today is National Bird Day.
In Monster’s imagination, that means it’s fried chicken day, silly Monster. He also believes everyday should be fried chicken day. Monster enjoys bird watching too, but he admits that he pictures birds like little flying fried chickens from time to time. I swear, sometimes you just can’t take Monsters anywhere!
All kidding aside, watching birds really is one of our (Monster and girl) favorite pastimes. One of our favorite locations to visit in early spring is a cabin we rent and frequent up on the Wapsipinicon River near Central City, Iowa. The river creates a nice valley through the area, and there are enough parks and wildlands along the river that it supports a breeding population of Bald Eagles.
As the snow disappears and the county gets ready to open their cabins for the year, we get ready to go. One of our favorite cabins has a front porch view of a large eagle’s nest, just across the river. Every single year we’ve been there, it’s been inhabited by a breeding pair of Bald Eagles. Some years we’ve been back to the cabin as many as three times in a single spring, mostly for the Eagle watching.
It’s both fascinating and entertaining watching the birds working to guard and raise their fast growing hatchlings.
Tame birds sing of freedom. Wild birds fly.
John Lennon
And no Monster doesn’t want to eat the eagles, in case you were wondering…
Canary in a coal mine
Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
Carl Sagan
Extinction is very real and it’s forever, just ask the Dodo. Oh that’s right, you can’t ask one because all the Dodo’s are gone, as are the Labrador Duck and the Passenger Pigeon. All of them are dead, gone forever, never again to grace our wildlands, our domesticated lawns, or anywhere on earth. The disappeared, the vanished, the extinct.
We’re fortunate to live in a world that’s vast enough, and wild enough, to sometimes heal itself from the wounds of man. Yet, in our ignorance and greed, there are times when we go beyond that threshold. The earth cannot heal itself from extinction.
I’m sure you don’t need the unpleasant reminder, but that’s what makes it so important, it needs to be understood viscerally. Extinction is forever!
Birds are often considered living links to the past, being the closest-related animals to the evolution of dinosaurs. They’re often keystone species in the ecosystems, signifiers of its health and vitality. For example, the holes left behind by woodpeckers are often used as homes for a large variety of other animals. That means if woodpeckers were to run out of a food source – or out of the right kinds of trees – so, too, would all the animals dependent on their pecking skills.
History of Bird Day
Eyes on the Sky – National Bird Day
A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Maya Angelou
One of my favorite places to watch birds was on my ex-wife’s farm. (Wife #2 for those with scorecards.) It’s not a working farm anymore, hasn’t been for a while, but there are both trees and several acres of prairie, and a water source just across a gravel road, so it attracted a great variety avians, especially in the spring.
There was no way to sleep thru the cacophony bird song just before dawn. As the first fingers of sunlight began to cross the threshold of darkness, the trees would begin erupt with several competing songs. As the sun actually began to peek over the curve of the earth (apologies to my flat-earth friends) the chorus of bridsong would crescendo. The thing about describing it as a crescendo is that is somewhat misleading.
A crescendo is temporary, it does not last for hours, the peak of the birdsong out on the farm went on until at least mid-morning. I’ll be honest and admit there were mornings when I cursed that noise, when I just wanted a few more hours of sleep after a night sitting around the campfire. At the same time, the sight and sound of all those songbirds every morning were spectacular… absolutely glorious!
Like some species of birds and their relationship with the rest of the world, I didn’t appreciate how special the farm was until it was gone. This year will be the second spring since I was last there to camp, and I feel the loss quite deeply.
The Raven – Edgar Allen Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe – Public Domain
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
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