More Birds

Day 210: Believe me, no one is any more surprised than I am by these sketches. A month ago, I was telling friends that I couldn't draw a recognizable cardboard box, and I meant it. The few things I have drawn well (a portrait of my poodle, done when I was about 11, a Sphinx moth and a handful of pen-and-ink backcountry landscapes) were works I considered "happy accidents." However, there was a clue among those few successes: the love I felt for the subject matter. Perhaps that hint explains these birds, at least in part. Anyone who has ever exchanged more than a few sentences with me will have discovered that I am a "bird person," something which goes beyond mere birding/birdwatching. I try to get inside their heads, to figure out how they think, why they do what they do, to understand the way they perceive a world which is very different from my own vision of it. I attempt to communicate with them on their level, learning a few carefully modulated phrases in the conceptual spoken language of the crows, for instance, or refraining from smiling when a chickadee is eating from my hand lest the bird interprets the upturned corners of my mouth as the beginnings of a predatory threat. I do not make eye contact until the bird initiates it, allowing it to be the one who makes the first social gesture. There is no question that I love my "birdies," so please indulge me as I present another set of portraits of the friends who come to my yard: male and female Rufous Hummingbirds, Cedar Waxwing and Steller's Jay.