Category Archives: Birds

January 21, 2025 · 8:13 pm

Ode to the Dinosaur-like Bird

BY KIMBERLY MAYER

My book group on island takes a hiatus of a couple months in winter with a great classic as our read. This year it’s Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. At an age where we all have more time than ever, we’ll whistle through it much like we devoured Dicken’s David Copperfield last winter. New literature will simply have to wait; it’s become a tradition to start each new year with a thick classic. This may or may not be as bizarre as other New Year traditions, my favorite of which is Las doce uvas de la suerte, the Spanish custom of eating twelve grapes under the table on New Years Eve.

In birding circles, the first bird one spots on January 1 is considered a sign for the rest of the year. A sparrow promises better days ahead, a goldfinch brings happiness and prosperity, a grosbeak heals old wounds, etc. Did I even remember to look for birds on Jan 1? I think not. I am spending the holidays in San Diego, and unless I’m in a park or the beach, I’m not sure to even see a bird here. Shocking to say when birds are overhead and all around us on island. There, time stands still when I notice the heron, and I always do. 

The heron surely represents patience. Poised like sculpture, wading in water–both freshwater and coastal–scanning for small fish, the great blue heron stands four foot tall on long skinny legs which possibly look like reeds in the water. Extending exceptionally long necks they strike their prey with lightning speed, spearing with razor-sharp bills.

Nesting high in trees and with outstretched wings of 6 feet, the great blue heron is a common sight in Western Washington where we are fortunate to have them as year-round residents. Consider the Pacific Northwest a sanctuary for the great blue heron. A refuge for all of us who, like birds, want to be left alone. 

Originally published January 15, 2025 in The Journal of the San Juan Islands

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January 2, 2012 · 12:52 am

Light as a Feather

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”(Chinese proverb)

Darkness and night had been closing in on us like a vise. So much for film noir winters in Seattle. You can deal with it, or do like the birds and head south. With our daughters living in San Francisco, my husband and I chose California for Christmas. I haven’t told them yet but it may always be this way.

We are driving. “Welcome to California” reads the sign illustrated with yellow poppies. The sky lifts; it is higher here and blue. Mt. Shasta is straight ahead and pointy. Soft grass on one side of the mountain, on the other, craggy rock. Black angus dot the golden fields. Pine needles shine in a silvery light, looking like feather trees. Rocks glow like mica. Everything is shining in this state. There’s a glare to the light, and something we haven’t seen for months: jet streaks across the sky. And things we never see in Seattle such as trees laden with oranges like ornaments. For the color and the light alone, we are glad we are coming.

I believe it’s a California bylaw that things are never quite what you expected. On Christmas day we dressed and stepped out with our daughters for a Moroccan dinner in The Castro. Later, to my sister-in-law’s home in The Bay Area where the food and the wine  never stop and every room is filled with art, one room flowing into another. Something has come back, it seems, a painting, a piece of sculpture, a magnum bottle, from every place they ever traveled and every event they ever attended. All together, assembled, arranged, and showcased, as one giant celebration of life.

Returning, a steady rain accompanies us as we make our way through The Pacific Northwest. That’s alright, we are over the hump now in terms of darkened days. Sod farms as green as Ireland, tree farms, and despite all the trucks on the road, we noted that not one was carrying logs. When the housing industry is down, the trees get a break. Clear cut areas have a chance to grow back, which has to be good for the birds.

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