Wanderings & Wonderings 009
ABCD: About Birds, Collage, & Death
Hi, I'm Niquelle, part-time traveler, full-time nature lover. I find joy in sharing about my adventures, big and small, as I wander around wonderland. In addition to essays and poems, I share weekly reflections with more details of my whereabouts and some recommendations, magical moments and encounters, current reads, and more. I hope some of my work inspires you to wander & wonder too! ✨
Whereabouts:
I mostly hung around home this week, due to seemingly endless cold, rainy, and grey days. It was starting to wear me down, for sure, but fortunately the weather took a slightly more pleasant turn toward the end of the week. Plus, as I write this, I’m looking forward to a weekend of camping, hiking, and exploring. A solid recipe for resetting my mood!
On the bright side, I did have the chance to connect with a few friends throughout the week, and that also lifted my spirits. In addition to extra support for goat chores this week (thanks, B!), I was able to spend an afternoon making collages and catching up with my friend L who’s reconnecting with her playful art-making self. What a joy to get to play alongside her! (Parallel play for the win.)1 We casually chatted about life, and interesting magazine spreads as we cut and pasted until our little hearts were content. Below are some photos from our time spent playing together. I highly recommend making something just for the sake of making it!
Scenes:
If spring is the season of life, why I have I been passing death on every corner? I’d like to think I have a healthy relationship with death. It’s something that equalizes us all; our humanness, our mortality. Death motivates me, humbles me, even inspires me. It’s also something that, at times, makes me feel deeply sad. Although all living things will ultimately experience nonliving (and will it actually be something we experience?), it’s difficult to think about innocent beings not getting a chance to fully live. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I’ve encountered death on every walk this week — spring is also the season of baby birds. Almost synonymous with death. When 75% of birds are bound to die before their first year, I shouldn’t be so surprised to see their small lifeless bodies strewn about the ground. Some undeveloped, still in their eggs. Others, underdeveloped, still without all their feathers. Others still, fledglings, just about to learn to fly, fend for, and feed themselves. But they’ve been snuffed out. Sometimes quickly, other times not so. It’s been weighing on me. In part due to the unseasonably cold and gloomy weather, I’m sure, but also because I must repress just how many baby birds I see, void of life, each year. (I asked my husband and he agrees I have made similar observations each year, and must forget, intentionally mercifully so.)
This year, though, I experienced something I don’t think I’ve witnessed before. On a drive home, I saw a flutter of black wings. Oh no! I thought, an injured crow. As I drove nearer I saw it was the crow doing the injuring. Seemingly fighting with a sparrow, the crow was hopping and thrashing around. Were they fighting over a delicious treat, I wondered. A croissant perhaps? If only this scene ended so sweetly. As I drove closer still, I saw they were in fact fighting over a small bird in the crows beak. I quickly scanned the road — considered pulling over as thoughts raced through my mind. Should I intervene? Isn’t the crow just doing what it needs to do to survive? Would the larger sparrow want my help or be afraid? If I stepped in, would there be any chance of helping anyhow? I ultimately decided not to stop (another car approaching encouraged me along), but I thought about this a lot during the week. Then I came home a few days later and found that a fledgling house sparrow, who was born and raised in a nest on our porch, had also passed. Though I’m not sure how. It’s too much sometimes. While spring is my favorite season, it doesn’t make seeing all this loss any easier.
Yet there is hope! Yesterday, the house sparrows were mating again, likely to raise another clutch on our porch. Their nest is actually built on two older nests, a 3-story home of sorts. What luxury! Then yesterday evening, I found a displaced and distressed baby bunny2 on a walk. After carefully looking around for a nest, any signs of other bunnies or a parent, and waiting a bit, I wrapped I carefully in a warm fleece. As it settled, I called a wonderful friend who was able to rush it to a Wildlife Rescue Center. Fingers crossed! All of this left me thinking, if death is inevitable, so is life.
Reads:
Most nights I’ve been spending a few minute before falling asleep reading The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. It’s been a wonderful counterpart to, (dare I say palate cleanser? Though I so enjoyed!), the book I shared about last week. It’s a delightful collection of nature journal entries of Amy’s observations from her Bay-area backyard. The birds she encounters almost turn to cartoons and characters in some of her sketches, in the most endearing way!, and you can just imagine the dialogue she must hear when she stops to listen in on their conversations. It’s refreshing to see someone so enamored with nature, especially in times when so many people, our government included, are trying to commodify the natural world. I can imagine this being a great book to share with kids, to leave on a coffee table, or to flip through anytime you need a little cheering up.
If you’re curious about Death & Birds I highly recommend Chloe’s Substack. Reading it always leaves me feeling moved or grounded in someway.3 She does a truly beautiful job sharing about life and death and the magic and mess of it all. Her work is an inspiration.
Q’s:
Let’s start with an easy one… how do you feel / what do you think about death?
Have you ever made a collage? If yes, did you like it? If no, would you try it?
If you were to create a nature journal about one class of animals, which would it be?
Until next time.
Although often something I only hear about in relation to young children, I really enjoy activities that involve “parallel play” where we’re all working on the same type of thing, but independently. Are you familiar with this idea and do you enjoy it too?
When I say baby, I mean less than 10 days old, its eyes weren’t even opened yet. It was so wee and so sad when I first found it. Crying and tossing it’d body back. I looked carefully around the area, in hopes of placing it back where I might have come from, but it had clearly been bumped up and rolled down a large hill. Please never remove wildlife from their homes, or near their nests. Especially young that are clearly in a nest or fledglings, even on the ground. Parents often stay near to help feed them and continue to raise them!
Funny how both of those feelings can be so similarly powerful, but when written they seem so drastically different.
I feel life and death are a process . Both frightening, yet both inevitable. Death , also, motivates me as well . What if death is another birth ??? I wait ……. And ponder !