The Birds

When I was a child, my father would raise his long arm above my head, his fingertips meeting at a point like the top of a pyramid. He’d widen his…

Featured Image Credit: Tammy Knight When I was child, my mother used to let me sit in her lap and watch the birds fly in our backyard. I scrambled up…

In the video, the gannet is preening and flirting with what he believes is another bird—a potential mate, the possibility of love—but she is just molded concrete painted yellow and…

Featured Image Credit: Hungry Robin by Peter Trimming via Flickr (CC BY 2.0) The ruckus? An agitated robin, incapable of full flight in the tight quarters of our house, flitted…

Steps to Thriving in a Chicago Winter Visit a nature preserve on December 21st to celebrate the start of winter and the shortest day of the year. You’ll miss the…

His canticles are sails that glide in a sea of a song, an amalgamation of hyaline notes snared against music staff. Look there, a treble clef mouse, alto mole, an…

—For JPD You’re right. A blackbird taken apart by a raptor is not the same as the nestling pigeon, wet from rain, run into the clogged freeway by slavish, hulking…

Jellico King once lived in the city. He worked for the Chrysler Electronics plant—first, on the line, welding together distributor parts, and then as an assistant supervisor. Bitsy, his wife,…

Playing near the dried-up creek neighboring my house, I found an injured blue jay lying on the ground, surrounded by pine needles, one wing twisted awry. At age 8, I…

I lay on my back on the ground and look up. In the space directly above me, a shape flitters in and out, back and forth. It is a hummingbird,…

Gabriella has taken to staring out the window, with what I think of as a forlorn look on her face. She’s still “in recovery,” and she’s lonely. Although I hold…

BALD EAGLE after Stephen Dunn & Ada Limon I don’t have children – and won’t – nor blue herons or red-winged blackbirds to show them while reflecting on refuge or…

Featured Image Credit: The Birds of America, John James Audobon (1838)   A sparrow in the house, my grandmother says, means someone there is going to die. I am a…

Lass, I see that clever crow followed you in to the aquarium from the outdoor café. That ape with feathers is hiding itself, or thinks it is, in the nook…