Ajijaakwe: Birds

Showing posts with label Birds. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Sky Spirits and Second Chances

Only yesterday, I was lamenting the fact that, thanks to the presence of the new girl in the round pen, the hitching post in it would go unused as a perch for raptors and other birds. It's one of their favorite spots, particularly for the one I call Nimishoomis. But when there's a horse in the pen, they tend to shy away.

So imagine my surprise when I went out to the studio with the camera to get shots of Wings's latest work, only to see in the distance a bird sitting atop it. It's not clear from the photos, but despite the clouds, I was facing directly into the sun in the southern sky, and the glare was impossible to navigate. I couldn't tell what sort of bird it was until I snapped the photo.

It's the one I call Grandfather.

Yes. The one who afforded us the fastest of glimpses two days ago, as he flew directly over my head to vanish into thin air. The one who, up to that point, I had not seen here for a month or more.

He was very decidedly, deliberately, seated atop the post, looking down on the new girl:

Rather than steering clear, he seemed to be watching over her.

I moved closer, trying to get a better shot, and he flew off, not seeming to need to gather himself at all, nor spring onto the air, before heading southward.

I also could not see him circle back around, but a split second later, he was north, not south. He had seated himself atop the giant blue spruce, where he could keep an eye on horse and me and the world at large:

After a few minutes, he tired of balancing there, and headed briefly westward. Just long enough, actually, to spiral upward in great sweeping circles, the glare too bright for me to find him anywhere against the dove-gray sky.

I took a shot, and took a shot, so to speak:

And there he was, so high that he seemed tinier than a hummingbird. He circled several more times, then suddenly zoomed straight toward me. He hovered a moment just overhead, then flew off in the direction of the mountains to the east, where he danced in and out of the peaks and valleys before vanishing, once again, seemingly into thin air.

Apparently, we are supposed to care for this horse.

She seemed better today, although "better" is very much a relative term. It's like the difference between being told you're dying and being told you'll probably die, but there's a chance they might save you: The survival instinct grabs onto every tiny shred of hope it can.

It's no less true for her.

We dosed her morning and evening with her meds, gave her her supplement, cleaned her up with Betadine, moisturized the horribly damaged tissue with spritzes of mineral oil, watched her go to town for a full quarter of an hour on a brand new salt-and-mineral block all for her.

We were her only human contact.

The sky spirits seem ed to take an interest in her, however.

This is the week of All Souls, a time when the spirits walk, when the ordinary course of days is upended, when day is night and down is up and east is west.

Tonight, east was most definitely west, with a stellar sunset the likes of which neither of us has ever seen . . . in the eastern sky above the peaks.

It feels like a benediction on the new girl, a chance at salvation for her. And for our grandfather spirits who have returned, as well.

And, it would seem, for us.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Monday, October 26, 2015

Flying Through the Thresholds

It's been a day of opposites: of warm sun and dark cold rain and wind; of frustration and irritation alternating with joy and laughter; of an entire afternoon wasted on a project that, upon completion, proved to be built upon defective raw materials that will need to be exchanged for something different, and of the transcendent transference of liftoff, watching familiar spirits take flight as they allow me to capture it.

Or not.

After a month-long absence, Nimishoomis visited today. To be clear, that is not him above, no, although that was a gift in itself: A flicker has been haunting me for days, just out of sight — calling, singing, commanding attention, yet unwilling to show himself. Until this evening, when he alighted in the top of the old cottonwood across the road, then leapt onto the winds heading westward. It is the first time I've caught a real shot of one in flight.

A magpie gave me an in-flight shot shortly thereafter, albeit from a great distance. He sprang from the top of the small twisted tree at the south fence, lifting off like a rocket, shoulders raised around his head and wings draped elegantly behind him. He is tiny in the photo, yet pure grace.

Then, of course, there was the spirit I've taken to calling Uncle Ferruginous, although he is more grandfather spirit than uncle. He appeared early in the day, but refused me a photo; tonight, he hovered repeatedly to allow me to capture two. In the second, he is centered directly in the light, his great beak peeking below the center of this tailfeathers.

All of these were messengers of joy, but not like the one whose image I didn't catch. Not only was a photo impossible, but I barely had a chance to see him racing away toward the mountains.

Nimishoomis.

I was in the middle of feeding the dogs, the sky purple with stormclouds, when Wings suddenly pointed overhead, a smile on his face. He kept saying, "Look," and I kept asking, "What?" because my hands were full, but his expression convinced me to drop everything and turn around. "It's Grandpa!" he said, and I could hear joy in his voice, too. He said the bird came literally from nowhere, just materialized, flying directly above my head on a low flight path.

I caught the briefest of views: silvery-gray wings, white underneath.

It flew on a trajectory from west to east, toward the fenceline and the peaks. And as we watched, it vanished into thin air. It was not beyond our line of sight, not high enough to be blocked by a cloud, not yet near the fence or any other obstruction, just . . . gone. There, and then not. Less than smoke.

He has been absent, or at least invisible, for a month, and I thought he had moved on. It left an unmistakable, undeniable void. Wings says that he came for me, that he just wanted me to see him, to know that he is watching over me.

This is a week when the lines between the worlds are thin, when thresholds and interstices are no longer solid, when the strongest spirits come and go at will, flying between and across and through. It can be a forbidding time.

Somehow, this year, it suddenly feels not merely unforbidding, but safer than the week just past.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

A Visit from an Ancestor

It's been a week since I wrapped up Hunger Road . . . and a week since Grandfather last appeared here in this place, in this form.

The last few days have been extraordinarily difficult physically: in part due to the drastic change in the weather; in part due to the workload we both carry. When my body is this worn out, my mind is not far behind, and it has been increasingly hard to do all that needs to be done.

When that happens, my cognitive abilities teeter and plunge, and my mood with them.

By this evening, the fatigue had set fully in, bone-deep. So had the mental and spiritual exhaustion. In recent months, it has been just when I am at such a low ebb that Grandfather appears . . . but for a week, he has been entirely absent.

I slung my camera around my neck before trudging up the long drive to shut the gate; it's not uncommon to see small evening birds or other good subjects, so it's become a habit. As I headed toward the drive, I looked wistfully toward the post in the round pen, always one of his favorite perches. It was empty, as it has been for these past seven days.

His last appearance coincided with my concluding of the telling of at least part of his story, and it seemed then like a benediction, a blessing, an assurance that I had done as he would have wanted, and done it well. he gave me the one thing he never had before: the ability to capture his image in flight.

As I walked past the carport, the post was fully in sight, empty. In that brief second, I felt myself wishing, rather sadly, that he would return, wondering whether last week would turn out to be his final appearance for the season . . . or for good. Suddenly in my mind, his voice (which I have never heard in life, only in dream states) came clear and plain: "When you need me, I'll be there."

Two steps later, and he was there. It was, quite literally, nothing more than the blink of an eye or the beat of a bird's wing, certainly not enough time for me to miss the sight of a raptor alighting upon it.

Yet, one moment he was not there; the next, he was. It was as though he materialized out of the sunlight itself.

I took a few distance shots, then went up to close the gate. He was waiting for me upon my return. He gave me some twenty minutes and scores of shots, turning this way and that, allowing me to capture him from virtually every angle. Most of the time, he stared directly at me, particularly when I spoke aloud. The bird knows the old tongue — how, I cannot begin to understand, but he responds to it far more readily than he does to English.

And so, while last week was an ending of sorts, it clearly was not final. I think that I will see him yet again. And while my body aches, my spirit hurts no longer.

For now, I am linked to my ancestor, even two thousand miles from our ancestral home, and my spirit soars with him.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Monday, September 21, 2015

IGotItIGotItIGotItIGotIt!!!!

Sometimes, you get lucky. Sometimes, Spirit just gives you a gift.

Yesterday, we finally got to meet a client of many years in person; he came with his son to see us in person yesterday. The man is a warrior, and the brilliant young man who is his son shows every sign of possessing the same strength of spirit.

Our friend fights for some of the country's most marginalized persons. He told us yesterday that when he gets to the point of public advocacy, he's done all of his spiritual preparation over the long term, and at that point, he's going to war. When I took photos of the two of them with Wings, I said I was getting photos of my three warriors, and I wasn't joking.

Some time after they left late yesterday, I went outside with my camera to try to get a shot of something entirely unrelated to the images here. While walking to the southwest, I caught a glimpse of a pair of large and powerful wings taking off from the field — just a glimpse; no more than an impression, really. It could have been a very large raven, or it could have been the ferruginous hawk who has begun to visit. I followed along my line of sight, hoping to find where he landed; it was a raptor, and he had perched atop my gnarled and twisted little tree at the south fence. I began shooting (at a very great distance, full zoom), and got off four halfway-decent shots before he took flight again. I went inside happy to have a few new shots of the being I've taken to calling Uncle Ferruginous.

Then I uploaded them.

I had to ask Wings to be entirely sure what I had.

It's an immature (indeed, very young) golden eagle. The telltale line of white dots angling along the wing against the rich golden brown are one giveaway. But the real ell came with a look at the underside of the tailfeathers: where on a hawk bars or bands appear, these were white with trademark brown swatches and speckles at the ends. When he took off, his extraordinarily large and powerful legs, looking like fringed chaps, were visible, and he had the yellow talons and edging on his beak; he also bears the upturned wingtips in flight that are the mark of Eagle (and Vulture).

Giniw. The War Eagle.

I was so delighted to have my first clear shots of an eagle, I couldn't ask for more. That alone was such a gift, such a blessing. I also didn't expect him to return; that would be entirely too much to ask, so I simply gave thanks for yesterday's momentary visitation and the gift of his image.

Today, I went outside for morning prayers a bit later than I normally prefer. As I walked to my designated spot, I noticed a large dark spot back in the tree. I hoped it was him, but had no confidence that it was; more, I had no confidence that he would still be there when I was finished. Still, I didn't abandon my current task in favor of getting my camera; certain obligations must be fulfilled in the proper way, without rushing or delaying them.

When I was done, I looked: He was still there. Now I went for the camera. He let me get more than halfway across the field, still shooting. And then, I was rewarded with the shot I've never been able to get in my life:

I had to cross two fields to get back, and I wouldn't swear that my own feet touched the ground the entire distance. I danced inside, practically hopping up and down with joy. Of course, I had to wake Wings to show him: "IGotItIGotItIGotItIGotIt!!!!"

Sometimes, spirits bring you luck, a reward, or simply a wonderful, glorious gift.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Monday, September 7, 2015

The Day of the Birds

For us, today was the Day of the Birds.

They began arriving early, in ones and twos, some our fellow residents, some almost never seen here.

A northern flicker, the red-shafted variant, who would be expected to arrive about now anyway . . . but he and a few of his clan broke with tradition over the past year and stayed with us year-round. This is the male, one of a pair, but the pair whose images I captured earlier this year; these two are young, barely mature and much smaller.

He arrived on the tallest latilla pole shortly after full sunup. He didn't stay there long — just enough for me to capture one image — but he appeared with his wife later this afternoon, giving me a few more shots of his autumnal featherwork.

The highlight of the day arrived shortly thereafter to join me at morning prayers. I never saw him land, but at the point that I reached the spot where I burn cedar every morning, he had quietly settled in only a matter of yards distant, across the east field.

My first thought was that it was my red-tailed girl, but no: This hawk was easily as larger, but with a striped mask across golden-yellow eyes and a barred tail. A ferruginous hawk, one listed as "near-threatened," and one that, while it ostensibly makes it home in these lands year-round, rarely allows itself to be seen.

Today, he not only permitted a viewing, but waited patiently while I completed my prayers, waited longer while I returned my bundle and retrieved my camera, waited still longer while I took shot after shot, allowing me within a scant few yards before swooping groundward and then soaring up to the cottonwood across the road.

At midday, Wings called me outside to tell me that the glossy ibises, those Gulf Shore spirits who paid us a visit just over a month ago for the first and only time, had returned. As it turns out, they were not the same pair; like the flickers, these elegant water birds were very young, very small.

They were also skittish, more so than their predecessors, staying only a short period of time . . . but long enough to go wading with some of our chickens. When they felt nervous, they huddled together in a cross-billed embrace, finding solace and strength in each other's bills and bodies.

They were joined by birds that had been fluttering around all day, yet never really landing: to the rest of the world, Brewer's blackbirds; in my language, simply "those who gather."

They, too, are skittish, casting their golden eyes warily upon all comers. Occasionally, however, they will sit still long enough to permit a group photo . . . and occasionally, an image of one taking flight.

For days, the sunflower patch on the west side, the largest we have ever had, has been lit with sun and song: delicate clear bell-like notes, from tiny spirits unwilling to show their faces to the world.

Today, one finally gave me an opportunity to capture his silhouette, if not his face — a tiny goldfinch, a bird not seen here for a half-dozen years or so, and then only in single pairs. This year, they have returned en masse, but already wear their winter garb.

Atop my gnarled little tree at the south end, a single iridescent black-billed magpie surveyed the land. This is his domain, as much as it is anyone's; indigenous to the land, he and his live here year-round, in great numbers. They raise their children here, generation after generation, maintaining and sustaining a life that is fully a part of this place.

Where I am from, they are white-fronted ravens, cedar birds and juniper birds identified with the trees where they make their homes, masterpieces of avian architecture. Here, they are fully-fledged family members, invited to share in food and water and shelter and fellowship. They are protective of the chickens against Coyote, they stalk my footsteps in the morning, demanding to be fed, the chatter and argue and gossip and mock from their perches and soar up and down upon the currents, small dancers in pleated shawls of black and white.

In recent days, the larger raptors have returned, among them the turkey vultures. They tend to roost across the road, in the tops of the cottonwoods that line the river, seated like bold sentries facing outward to the four directions. They soar so high that it's often difficult to get a close image, even with a zoom; still, the telltale arch of their wings and the upturned tips of their feathers give away their identity, even to those of us bound to earth far below.

This one departed from his clan's great swooping circles, striking off temporarily on his own. Occasionally, he will fly directly overhead, following a slow looping path that allows him almost to hover, scarlet face turned toward the land around me. He shows no signs of wanting anything here, at least nothing more than companionship, fellowship, a momentary communication between the beat of his wings and my upturned lens.

These days, the Eurasian collared doves are as much a part of the geography here as their distant magpie cousins. They are not native to this place, not even to this continent, but they were brought here by force some four decades ago, and loosed upon the land. They are hardy birds, by turns skittish and territorial, and it has served them well in this new and foreign land.

It is difficult to tell them apart, although less so in winter, when the female doves don earthier dress. By August, they were already switching out their robes, another sign of likely early snows. Even now, they show signs of seasonal preparation, spending far more time at the feeder than in recent months. They are romantic creatures, the males openly pursuing potential mates, pouting up their neck feathers into magnificent gray ruffs while engaging in their traditional three-step dance. Once paired, the lovebirds fly together, roost together, and on days like this, the male feeds and grooms his mate.

Of course, a day of visitations would now seem incomplete without the presence of my grandfather. Most call him American kestrel, but in our way, he is a smaller sort of marsh hawk, the bird who shares his name with my great-grandfather, gone now more than a century, yet newly alive in my writing of late.

For much of the summer, a more ordinary marsh hawk would appear occasionally, soaring high overhead, hovering occasionally just long enough for me to catch a glimpse, and occasionally, a photographic image. Over the last few weeks, however, he has been succeeded by the kestrel, a bird indigenous to this land who has not been seen here in a half-dozen years . . . until now. He only comes on days when I particularly need solace or strength of spirit. I had not seen him for a few days, and assumed that he would not appear, but late this afternoon, out in the field with Wings where he dug post holes for a length of fence, the tiny falcon returned.

Wings now calls him, simply, "Grandpa," but the man whose spirit he embodies holds far too powerful a place in my mind and soul; I cannot conceive of addressing him so informally. He is Grandfather, and mostly in the old tongue, at that. And on a day marked by visitors and visitants, by visitations of so many varied spirits, to see him at the end was a final gift. I have no doubt, however, that it was he who sent all the others ahead of his own appearance. And I know that he sent each with a message, a special gift of spirit that we will need to open, to untie and untangle and decipher and put into practice.

The Day of the Birds is only the beginning.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Giniw

You can't tell from the distance (and that's at virtually full zoom, which gives you and indication of how high it was circling), but that's Giniw.

Golden Eagle. Also, War Eagle.

We haven't had one here, in sight, over our land, since the day after my father walked on more than eight years ago. He showed up yesterday, twice, circling overhead, playing on the currents, seeming almost to stop and hover in mid-air to let me get a shot off, except that the sunlight was far too bright to see him, even with the viewfinder.

My father was not named for him, and I have no reason to think that it bears any relationship to him; quite the opposite, in fact. But my other ancestors, those of whom I write lately . . . ? I know that Marsh comes to visit; he always seems to appear on the days when my spirit is at its lowest, which leads me to think that I am interpreting the man correctly. He was feared and fearsome, but not especially loved, and I always wanted to understand what made him appear that way. Maybe I do. I do know, now, that he came to once, long ago, although I didn't recognize him at the time.

Giniw. Perhaps Marsh's own father? Someone older yet? I don't know. I do know that he returned today with a companion, circling and swooping and diving over the trees and the water across the highway. Today's shots were less clear yet, but I caught, if not spectacularly well, two of them together.

I have long since been forced to accept that my relationship to my past, our past, will always necessarily be truncated, attenuated. Circumstances of times long past saw to that, and thoroughly so. But maybe, in this family of wingéd ones, the spirits of the ancestors are crossing the interstices, the spaces between the worlds, coming to brush me with their wings — to touch my soul, just for a moment, and let me know that, however solitary, however far removed in time and place and space I am from their embrace, I am not alone.

Friday, June 5, 2015

The Piñon Tree Is Silent

We had to bury one of their children today.

Magpies mourn. And tonight, the nest outside the window is silent with grief.

It's in the piñon tree on the west side, one of the same ones they used last year. They built a condo in it then, one with a bit of a roof over it to shelter their young from ravens on the make. Their cousins built an even bigger roof over the nest in the stand of red willow to the southwest, over by the pond, after a day when I chased the ravens away repeatedly.

They are brilliant architects. Most of the time.

Over the winter, when the young were grown and foraging on their own, they abandoned the nest; it was taken over by sparrow and junco families during the snowy months. With spring's arrival and the small birds' young already fledged and on their own, the magpie family returned to set up housekeeping.

The land here is partly underwater, as it has been all week; the pond is full, the water being pumped out to areas close in where the ditch flow doesn't reach. I went to move the hose from juniper to piñon this afternoon, and found the little lost one beneath the tree.

All pink skin and sharp angled bones and bulging blind eyes yet closed, it had not a single feather on it. I'm not sure when they hatched; their mother has been talking softly to them for days now. And apparently, the little one, unable to see, fell out of the nest.

We buried it beneath the tree that is their home. Two mirror-image magpie wing feathers lay on the ground not far away, one on one side, one on the other. We marked the grave with the feathers, in hopes that the parents would recognize it for what it was. Later, I saw them searching through the grass all over the lawn, inch by inch, then furiously chasing a cousin off. One parent had mud and pitch held fast in its beak, presumably to patch up the hole; it never dropped a bit, even as its wings beat a tattoo in the air around the now-unwelcome cousin.

Magpies grieve. Terribly.

I've heard them mourn lost eggs, lost children, lost adults. It's a sound that's unforgettable, one that rips your heart out at a rate of a millimeter per note.

They trust us here, as much as it's possible for them to trust any huge, clumsy, dangerous creature with two legs and no feathers. I hope they somehow know that their little one has been taken care of properly, and that their own hearts heal.

But for tonight, the piñon tree is silent.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Landing gear down, and still wobbling

Raven, yesterday, chased and harried by magpies.

Me, today, chased and harried by memories. Those I have, and those I've been forced to realize I don't have, and neither of which were anything I ever asked for. All carried in the clutching, grasping, skeletal fingers of pursuing ghosts.

They did bring me one other thing: a massive trigger-induced migraine that's been with me unabated for 18 hours now.

I'm useless until the pain clears, so Raven will have to be it for today. If I'm lucky, I might see y'all tomorrow.

Or not.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

#BirdBlessed

It's been a day of firsts for me on the bird front.

In terms of photos captured, first of a Black-Headed Grosbeak (female). First of a Western Tanager (female). First (in focus) of a bird in flight, and I managed to get a few of two different species (Black-Billed Magpie and Chihuahuan Raven).

And first of the one shown above. The dominant culture calls it Lewis's Woodpecker, because, it insists, it was "[f]irst collected and named in 1806 by Lewis and Clark in Idaho."

Bullshit.

It was named millennia before that, by the peoples who truly discovered it. So, since we have no better name, and I refuse to call something so beautiful by the name of such a colonialist wretch, we'll use Kachina Bird, because when it looks straight at you, it looks exactly like one of the ancient bird kachinas, its red mask and black eyes and bill exactly reproduced in the personifiers' case masks.

In terms of visitations, we also had other firsts: what appeared to be a female Scott's Oriole, and the whole family of House Sparrows, the offspring no more than two inches long and slightly wobbly, but learning the ins and outs of the feeder under Mom and Dad's tutelage nonetheless.

And all the other birds that are or have become regulars, including the male Black-Headed Grosbeak, male and female Evening Grosbeaks, and all the others that have lived here forever, or the next thing to it.

And you know what's really cool? When your man is a professional photographer, and yet he not only encourages amateur you, he's actively proud of you.

And tells you so.
#Blessed.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The Meadowlark's Song

She sings because she can.

Because she must.

Every morning; every evening. Sometimes in the space between.

Her song is who she is: It identifies her, defines her; it is her task and her gift.

It is her word, every note a syllable, every sound a part of her, pulled from deep within her.

Do you wish to know why I write?

I write for the same reason Meadowlark sings.

Monday, May 11, 2015

A Female Singer Pays a Visit

She wanted her photo taken.

She wanted to be recognized.

Don't we all.

Friday, May 8, 2015

The Dance

It's been frenetic lately.

I want to spend this weekend on some serious downtime, but I doubt I'll get my way.

Tomorrow, I'll be back out there with my magpie buddy. She at least is dancing because she wants to. Also compelled to, to a degree, but I digress.

Today's visit was lovely, the rest of the day was hectic, the wind is howling, and my AI's in full flare, so I got nothin'. Maybe tomorrow.

Or not.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Visitors, Visitors

New ones, old ones.

We have human visitors arriving tomorrow: A Kossack and her husband are detouring down our way on their way across the country. They're moving, but they're stopping here to see us and to arrange a special commission with Wings.

Which, of course, means that I spent the day cleaning, with my own detour intending to do some things in the gallery. That detour got detoured, and we wound up moving, at long last, a thoroughly massive shelving unit into it. It's one from the old gallery (and one he made by hand years ago), but it's a tight squeeze, which is why we've been putting it off. It's also an incredibly heavy job for two people, but with Wings's ingenuity (and back-breaking labor by both of us), we got it inside and placed, and the appropriate pieces of inventory are now cleaned and placed onto it.

We had other visitors today: a small flock of tiny birds that move so rapidly it's impossible to tell, in the morning sunlight, what they really look like. They turned out to be yellow-rumped warblers, birds that theoretically are found here regularly, but that neither of us can recall having seen before. It appears that the whole clan is here now, though. In my language, there are two basic names for them: the cedar bird, which fits; and the bird who flees, which fits better. They love the aspens here, but they flit skittishly at the slightest sight or sound.

The Bullock's orioles (in my language, the alder birds) returned a few days ago. They're a pair, and today, it became clear that they are the same pair who raised their young directly overhead last year. And when I say "directly overhead," I mean exactly that: They built their nest in the aspen exactly over the picnic table where we ate breakfast (and often lunch) every day last summer. They allowed Wings to get photos of their young, and they brought them out as fledges to stretch their own wings even when we were present.

The male mostly stood guard today, looking fat and happy, but utterly watchful the whole time. Meanwhile, his wife investigated their old nest thoroughly, and it was clear from their excited chatter back and forth that they thought they'd found their old home. I managed to get shots of her going over and under and in and out and through it, checking every minute detail, the two conversing rapidly the whole time. Eventually, she established to her satisfaction that it was indeed their old home, and apparently also that it was reparable for use this year; content, she hopped off to a branch alongside and sat like the queen she so clearly is.

I imagine we'll see them rebuilding over the days to come: Heaven knows there are more than enough tiny twigs and strands of horsehair and molted chicken feathers to make for a luxurious home for them.

If we're really lucky, maybe both clans will put in an appearance tomorrow for our other visitors.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Asiginaak Sings to Me

They are called asiginaak, in my language. "Those who gather." Etymologically, it comes from the word for the activity of gathering up things, but I like to think it also refers, at least connotatively, to their propensity for community, for gathering in flocks, for protecting and supporting each other.

It's a name applied to black birds of all sorts, from the smaller ones of single-word name to the large grackles like these. It reflects our own propensity for identifying things with greater accuracy and inclusion than the colonial languages superimposed on us: Our names revolve around what creatures do, whereas the others focus strictly on [some] appearances. After all, a female blackbird is not black at all, but brown and gray (as are the female grackles, including the great-tailed grackles that visited today). So I ask: Whose is the more accurate name?

A male showed up yesterday for a brief moment. This morning, he was back, singing from atop the aspen for an extended period. I was consumed with completing horse-related tasks before the rain hit again (and didn't manage it, several times over), so I didn't take time for a photo. He returned to the same spot this afternoon, though, and sang and sang until I relented and came outside to take his photo.

He was back this evening, while the sun still shone — apparently he's grown fond of his spot in the aspens, and he sings in their hallmark bell-like tones and rolling burrs, louder, stronger versions of their smaller cousins' voices. He brought his brother this time:

a companion who sat atop a wall just long enough for me to capture his image, then flew westward.

They do not, to my knowledge, have any particular symbolic significance here — beyond, of course, serving as seasonal heralds and standard-bearers of an avian sense of community. But tomorrow is a day I have set as one in which I will deliberately let go of one particular set of burdensome tasks. There is significance to the date, but only for myself. It will not by any means release me from the dynamics which have swamped me, heart and soul, for the last month; that will continue for a long time, and I will continue to work it out in my own way. That means that I will continue to do as I see fit to deal and heal; this is not something anyone else gets an opinion on, because no one else wears my moccasins.

While I'm now unburdening myself of this one set of tasks, I've been mentally doing likewise with other dynamics in my life. There are places and spaces where people are unlikely to find me now, and that is fine. Changes are looming here; we have much to do in the coming weeks and months, and there is nothing — not a single thing — that does, can, should, or will take precedence over Wings, myself, and what we are and do here.

Asiginaak sings, and we listen.

We're simply living.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Strange Gifts

It's been a day of strange gifts.

Weather out of season, visitors out of place.

For a couple of weeks now, we've been getting monsoonal thunderheads daily, mostly with no more than a couple of dozen sprinkles. Until now. It rained all night last night, something that almost never happens even in the wettest season here. Today, it was intermittent clouds and fog and sun and thunder and rain and hail and sleet and even a snowflake or ten.

August's monsoons seem to have decided to make an entrance three months early again this year, wedding themselves to late-Spring snows.

That photo? An hour or so ago, maybe a little less.

The Chokecherry Birds were back today, much of the clan joyously flinging oiled black sunflower seeds in the feeder. The Say's Phoebe showed up again, too, this time to cadge nectar out of the hummingbird feeder with his long bill.

And we had a pair of very-early-morning visitors who perhaps explain Raven's agitation last night, running great distances to and fro, barking and howling, for more than hour despite the impending storm. Normally, at the first drop in barometric pressure or distant rumble of thunder (so distant it's out of human hearing), he's scratching at the door, begging to be let in. Thanks to idiots shooting indiscriminately up on the ridge, he now associates the sound of thunder with that of gunfire, and having had the real thing aimed at him as a puppy before his rescue by us, it terrifies him. He won't go out in it, not for love or ~~money~~ Milk-Bones.

And yet, last night, for more than an hour, as the storm hurtled closer by the second, he ran, in the wind and eventually the rain, back and forth and back and forth, patrolling, barking and growling and howling, impervious to my repeated entreaties and demands that he come inside.

This morning, we were visited by what we believe were two young adult gray wolves. The photos are too blurry to tell; they run fast and low to the ground, powerful sloping hindquarters and big shaggy heads, and when in full predatory sprint, they're nearly a blur. One was buff-colored, the other a black-and-silver mix that is known in the breed as grizzled. ["Gray wolf" is the species designation; their actual color varies along a spectrum of off-whites, grays, tans, browns, and blacks.] I know what you're thinking, but we know the neighborhood dogs, and these were not that. They also did not, to my eye, appear to be hybrids.

This is unprecedented here, at least in contemporary terms. The Mexican gray wolf is indigenous to this area, of course, and there are clans of them in the mountains, but overdevelopment and human encroachment have forced them continually further back, limiting their "safe" range even as climate change decreases their options for survival in those spaces. Still, we've never seen one here, at least in daylight; they may very well visit at night while we're asleep, but allowing themselves to be seen is a first. To the best of my memory, I've never before seen a wolf in the wild, save along a New England highway once twenty years ago.

We're not sure what to make of it. On the one hand, it worries us that weather and creatures alike are showing up here out of season; it's yet another indicator of the rapacity of advancing climate change. At the same time, it feels like a gift — that they all seem to feel secure enough to come here, to this place.

Here, they are welcome, and they will be protected.

It feels like grace.

Ajijaakwe