What Do I See
May 21, 2023
Hello friends! In honor of my birthday and my 100th subscriber-only post, I will be sending out my paid subscriber posts to all subscribers this week. In addition, I’m offering a discount on the annual subscription through the end of May. I’m not sure how I feel about discounts and I’ve never offered one before, but I learned about the “giveaway” tradition of some native peoples and it felt like a good thing to do to celebrate making another revolution around the sun!
The sunrise comes so early now that I often can’t quite get out the door to greet it. I want to, of course, but sometimes my body wants to sleep. I seem to both need more sleep and struggle more with sleep than I used to. The small opening by the pond in my neighborhood (which I can get to faster than the lake) is nearly grown over with reeds and leaves - and more troublesome, the poison ivy is quickly spreading across the ground. The picture above is probably the last sunrise there for a while! For the next two months, I will do the dance of wanting to be out with the creatures of the morning and needing to get the sleep my body requires until the sunrise slowly starts to move back to a more reasonable hour.
Spring migration is winding down but there are still birds passing through even as those who are staying for summer are building their nests. Some of the larger birds like the great blue herons, great horned owls, and pileated woodpeckers are already chasing their young ones around trying to keep them safe as they venture out into the world.
As I walk I’ve been thinking a lot about what I see - and what I don’t see. For instance, I see a lot of northern cardinals but rarely see summer tanagers even though they are relatively common here in the summer. This year I’ve learned to (mostly) tell the difference in their sounds and suddenly I seem to be seeing more tanagers. I think I’m just looking closer, not assuming every red bird is a cardinal. After all this time with birds, I thought this was something I knew, but sometimes I’m not aware of my own assumptions.
One day on the trail I stopped in my tracks to check if my eyes were deceiving me - up ahead were seven catbirds, all out on the trail picking something off the ground. I can’t remember ever seeing more than two catbirds at one time and that’s usually when one is a fledgling. When I got nearer they all flew into the bushes, but one stopped to give me a quick pose before he disappeared.
I had seen a couple of thrushes with the catbirds and I assumed they were both Swainson’s thrushes. I later heard from other birders that one of the birds in that group had been a gray-cheeked thrush. I had no idea there was such a thing as a gray-cheeked thrush! All this time I’ve been assuming every thrush is a Swainson’s (unless it clearly has the markings and song of a hermit thrush) and it turns out there’s another bird that’s only slightly different. How many times might I have seen it and yet not seen it over the years?
There are things I expect to see and I’m confused when I don’t see them. For instance, last year I didn’t see any mockingbirds or scissor-tailed flycatchers in the park at all. Normally I see mockingbirds all year long and both birds had always been plentiful, with many nesting pairs throughout the park. I had not seen one since late 2021 and eBird shows no sightings of scissor-tails last year and only a couple mockingbirds. I have no idea what could have happened, but I was so happy to find a northern mockingbird singing away at the top of a tree this week!
For weeks I’ve been looking in the trees for warblers, but I don’t see many warblers compared with other local birders. Today I walked with two lovely women, Mary and Marianne, who are much better at spotting warblers (and also taught me about the gray-cheeked thrush). Mary was extremely adept at hearing the sounds of warblers, and I confess that my ears often don’t pick up their high-pitched notes. I thought I was patient when out with the birds, but I see after today that with warblers I need to be more patient still as several times when we lingered in an area a new bird would appear. Thanks to Mary and Marianne, I saw two warblers today I hadn’t seen this spring and a Canada warbler I had never seen before.
Noticing what I see and what I don’t see always makes me wonder what else I don’t see in daily life. Do I really see what’s there when I look at myself in the mirror or do I see what I expect to see? What do I see when I look at those I love or the challenges that arise or even the more mundane tasks of life? I know I have many subconscious assumptions that both get me through the day and keep me from seeing what’s really there. The meditation and mindfulness practices I do are intended to help with this and yet it’s good - and humbling - to be reminded there will always be plenty I’m not seeing.
I’ve been practicing QiGong through Holden QiGong online now for about six months. It is an ever-deepening practice of noticing what’s really there in my body, mind, emotions and in the energy around me in any given moment. It feels like a bridge between how I pay attention in nature and how I’m learning to pay attention in my life. It’s a moving meditation and mindfulness practice. I am constantly eager to learn more and continue to try new classes and learn new things. Holden QiGong is having a free 5-day challenge beginning May 29th. You can sign up here if you’d like to try it out.
I have a few days off this week and I’m hoping to catch up a little on the photos and videos I’ve taken - as well as get some rest. It’s amazing how quickly my to-do list grew as long as my arm and how my body responded by letting me know I need rest. I probably won’t catch up as much as I think - and that’s ok.
Wishing all of you whatever brings you joy and rejuvenation this week. Take good care!
Happy Birthday!!! 💜
Happy Birthday week Karen, especially nice that you will have time to yourself to drift and create. I'm so taken with the heron and tern photo ~ just lovely.