Murmuration
Posted: 11/04/2011 Filed under: Nature, Watching | Tags: murmuration, Sophie Windsor Clive, starlings, video Leave a comment »Starling season is approaching… Breathtaking!
Thanks to Christina Birdsong (how appropriate!) for the link!
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P.S. Walking In Season photos for October and November are waiting to be shared. They are just as excited to show themselves to you as so many of you are to see them! Soon, I promise!
Of Red Mushrooms
Posted: 05/20/2011 Filed under: Motherhood, Nature, Photography, Watching | Tags: baby, bouncy chair, fungi, mushroom, red mushroom, video, Virginia 3 Comments »
After days of rain, fungi have begun popping up all around! This bright one pushed its way through the moss of our backyard overnight.
For quite a while, Bennett has been fixated on the red-capped mushroom on his activity bar (as this video taken a couple months ago attests). But the little guy above is his first glimpse of a real one!
Cicada Moon
Posted: 05/17/2011 Filed under: Listening, Nature, Watching | Tags: cicadas, periodical cicadas, thirteen year, video, Virginia, Williamsburg Leave a comment »May’s full moon may be called the Flower Moon or Milk Moon by others, but to us, this year, it is the Cicada Moon! The 13-year periodical cicadas are in full troubadour mode, filling our neighborhood with the sound of their courting song (which is so loud, it has been mistaken for a car alarm or roaring generator by more than one Williamsburg resident).
Matt took the video above. In it, you can hear the cicadas’ mating call: one long, high, whirring note, sung all day long, audible even inside the house. And see those specks flitting between the tree leaves? Those are cicadas!
Ah, the sound of romance! And on the full moon, at that!
Duality
Posted: 05/05/2011 Filed under: Photography, Quotes, Thoughts, Watching 1 Comment »
How difficult it can be to distinguish good from bad. Fortune from misfortune. The right path from the wrong. So often, to our surprise and consternation, we find these opposites to be entwined. Inseparable.
There’s a parable that surfaces in various forms in various cultures that speaks to this. The version that comes most readily to my mind (because, in our rare free moments, when we’re too tired for anything but TV, we Netflix Northern Exposure, which is quite possibly the most wonderful show ever made) is this one, from the NX episode “Bolt from the Blue,” as related by character Marilyn Whirlwind:
The Warrior
My uncle once told me about a warrior who had a fine stallion. Everybody said how lucky he was to have such a horse.
”Maybe” he said.
One day the stallion ran off. The people said the warrior was unlucky.
”Maybe” he said.
The next day the stallion returned, leading a string of fine ponies. The people said it was very lucky.
”Maybe” the warrior said.
Later, the warrior’s son was thrown from one of the ponies and broke his leg. The people said it was unlucky.
”Maybe” the warrior said.
The next week, the chief lead a war party against another tribe. Many young men were killed. But, because of his broken leg, the warrior’s son was left behind, and so was spared.
* * *
When faced with events that teach us that good and bad are two sides of the same coin, learning to accept their duality but to focus on the good almost always makes for a happier life, I do believe.
The Mountain
Posted: 04/23/2011 Filed under: Nature, Watching | Tags: video 2 Comments »Something beautiful for your Saturday: “The Mountain,” time-lapse scenes of nature and the Milky Way, filmed from El Teide, Spain’s highest mountain (and home to Teide Observatories), between April 4 and 11 of this year by Terje Sorgjerd.
Enjoy!
The Cackle of Grackles
Posted: 10/08/2010 Filed under: Nature, Watching | Tags: common grackle, flock, grackle, mob, Quiscalus quiscula, VA, video, Virginia, Williamsburg Leave a comment »Our yard is a good spot for bird-watching: swans, herons, ospreys, owls, woodpeckers, robins, sparrows, finches, egrets, ducks, and this morning, grackles — several hundred of them, in fact!
I grabbed the closest camera — our little point-and-shoot — and, from our second-story window, caught the tail end of their cacophonous visit. The video quality is not the best, and sadly does not catch the sound of their chattering, but it’s still a nice little record of their riotous-if-fleeting presence here.
Grackles gather in large multi-species flocks, and we did spot a cowbird in today’s mob. Grackles from the northern U.S. and Canada fly south to overwinter in the southern U.S. We aren’t sure whether today’s flock were northerners newly-arrived in town for the winter, or locals simply on the hunt for a good breakfast.
Grackles are considered nuisance birds by many folks (the damage they can do to crops, especially corn, is quite astonishing). But they have lovely yellow eyes and feathers that shine a beautiful iridescent blue-purple, and for that I find them fantastic. Learn all about them here!
It’s World Breastfeeding Week!
Posted: 08/04/2010 Filed under: Motherhood, Watching | Tags: 2010, breastfeed, breastfeeding, Buffy breastfeeds Cody, KellyMom, KellyMom.com, lactation consultant, Sesame Street, World Breastfeeding Week Leave a comment »Happy World Breastfeeding Week, everybody! In its honor, a sweet little pro-breastfeeding Sesame Street clip:
And if you’re a expectant or nursing mom in search of great breastfeeding advice and resources, be sure to check out KellyMom.com, an excellent, evidence-based website created by a board-certified lactation consultant! It’s a gem.
Song of Childhood
Posted: 07/12/2010 Filed under: Motherhood, Poetry, Watching | Tags: Peter Handke, Song of Childhood, when the child was a child, Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire Leave a comment »Song of Childhood
When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child,
It didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.
When the child was a child,
It had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.
When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people,
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?
When the child was a child, Read the rest of this entry »
For a Coming Extinction
Posted: 07/02/2010 Filed under: Nature, News, Poetry, Uncategorized, Watching | Tags: BP, BP oil spill, dolphins, extinction, For a Coming Extinction, Gulf, Gulf oil spill, oil spill, poet laureate, The Lice, W.S. Merwin, whales, Zen Buddhism 2 Comments »Zen Buddhist W.S. Merwin is our nation’s new poet laureate! I could not be happier!
The BP oil spill in the Gulf continues. I could not be sadder.
After watching this video of over 100 dolphins and a sperm whale struggling in the oil (footage begins around minute 6:10),
I felt that this poem of Merwin’s was the right one to share today.
For a Coming Extinction
Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day
The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours
When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And foreordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your word to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important
- W.S. Merwin, from The Lice (1967)
