Red Cockcaded Woodpecker tree

I have three words for the amazing thing yesterday:

red cockcaded woodpecker

or
satiated bird longing

great year end

...there are things we want to say
-but saying them is pretty nervy-What reason have I for getting the notion that I want to say something and must say it. -

Of course, marks on paper are free- free speech- press- pictures all go together I suppose- but I was just feeling rather downcast about it- and it is so nice to feel I said something to you and to Stieglitz. I wonder what I said- I wonder if any of you got what I tried to say-

... it makes me want to keep on- and I had almost decided it was a fool's game.

-Georgia O'Keeffe writing to her friend Anita on Stieglitz's reaction to her work

Birded all day, and went into the depths of Florida. The most disturbing after-image of the trip is the sprawling, overbearing, and just plain massive amounts of development. It is like a giant mouth swallowing up the last wild places. Even in those remote areas you can see the huge amounts of change brought on by people. The non-native species have moved in and in many cases have totally overtaken the indigenous plants and animals. The guide on this journey often spoke bitterly of a population that lives here only in winter but demands to take over the place all year round. They go to their regular homes as soon as spring hits and leave their borrowed real estate empty for most of the year. I ask at what price? So that more species can go extinct? If you are going to live in this land of unbearable traffic and choking development, then have the guts to stick it out in the very hot summer. He mentioned that 11 Florida panthers died from car fatalities this year because of the roads that now dissect their habitat. They will certainly disappear within the next couple of years. He expressed his bitter sadness at the giants of housing that hold the cards and manage to get high rise condos built in mangrove swamps despite the ban on disturbing the mangrove habitat. Florida is on a fast-track to ecological ruin unless we stop it; where the wildness that attracted so many here in the first place will soon fall to yet another strip mall. So I looked at it, studied it, marveled at the true saw-grass Everglades, watched the butterflies, smelled the marsh-mellow scented plants, and walked through small pockets of old cypress stands. At least I had a moment, but I wish I was here 5, 10, or even 15 years ago. He said things were so much different then.

So I am out and about! The weather down here is a beautiful 80 degrees and sunny. I managed to see the rarest bird I have ever seen today: Whooping Cranes.

They were glorious, tall and white with a startling red cap. I took photos of them but I will have to share them later. They were shy, so I only could get distance shots.

...off to sleep

Immature Ring-billed gull

Soon I will also be flying

The cat was euthanized because he was sick. I feel rather badly about this and wonder if I should have kept him. I could have taken him to a real vetrinarian. I can't help but be softhearted about this in my quinessential female way. I hate that, being so sentimental. I should be harder, well he was sick, well he would die anyway...etc etc etc. I just think it sucks to be born and die right away before he even got a chance to live. (see, horribly sentimental) It also sucks because I would have spent the money that the shelter was reluctant to pay in order to make him well (if it was possible).

In effort to not be fixated on this unhappy ending, I will tell you all that I have a new camera! This is a fortunate thing for my huge fan base. They will be treated to some wonderful photos, and you can make a bet that birds will be a BIG subject. It is a Canon SLR Rebel XTi. I have been using a borrowed Canon Rebel (older model). I need to figure out all of its features as they are not quite the same as the old Rebel. I have also been doing my homework on photography and went to see a very nice show today.

So stay tuned my blogites...

I found this little kitten today on my way home from walking my dogs. He was in the road and I got out of my car and picked him up. I took him to the local SPCA so that he can get medical attention, I wish I could have kept him. I did have a full house today, now I have a slight reprieve and off again in a bit to another party. Oh wait, no one gives a damn. I am afraid my blog experiment has failed- or has it... I wanted to study the degree of anonymity within blogging. If I told no one I knew of this blog, would it get found and read? Do people see it, or is it a true dead space? A page lost among millions of pages, where you can reveal everything and in a sense nothing. Art without an audience. So I could tell you everything and it would be a catalyst for only more emptiness. Bah Humbug... off to put a pretty face on it, smiles and all I want is to curl up on the couch with that little lost cat and give him some comfort. No, the reality is that he is sitting in a metal cage sick and surrounded by other cats in some dark room.

Have a good holiday anyway...

For a good laugh about the upcoming holiday, check out Crumpet the Christmas Elf reprise at:


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6663382

A hilarious story by David Sedaris.

A question of myth

The big debate among some 3rd grade students, was how Santa Claus could possibly visit so many houses. The general gist of this conversation was that a single person would be unable to accomplish such a task. It was suggested that Santa was magic and therefore able to move faster then the speed of light. This magic also obviously would apply to the reindeer as well. Another student believed that Santa had clones, which would allow for his different but similar look in different countries. One student commented that Santa had once lived in the South Pole but his dwelling had been discovered and he was forced to move to North Pole.

See what fun 20 sugared up 9 year olds can prove to be?

Maybe it was an abstract idea that you've got to find a symbol for, or maybe it was a concrete form that you have to simplify or distort to meet your ends, but that starting point must pervade to whole. Then you must discover the pervading direction, the pervading rhythm, the dominant, recurring forms, the dominant color, but always the thing must be top in your thoughts. Everything must lead up to it, clothe it, feed it, balance it, tenderly fold it, till it reveals itself in all the beauty of its idea.

-Emily Carr

((sigh...:-))

Art appears in many forms. To some degree every human being is an artist, dependent on the quality of his growth. Art need not be intended. It comes inevitably as the tree from the root, the branch from the trunk, the blossom from the twig. None of these forget the present in looking backward or forward. They are occupied wholly with the fulfillment of their own existence. The branch does not boast of the relation it bears to its great ancestor the trunk, and does not claim attention to itself for this honor, nor does it call your attention to the magnificent red apple it is about to bear. Because it is engaged in the full play of its own existence, because it is full in its own growth, its fruit is inevitable.

-Robert Henri The Art Spirit

"The materia prima is exquisitely, brilliantly beautiful to the person who can understand it for what it is. In the midst of its rotting pile, it shines at the "true philosopher" with secret light. The idea that everything begins in squalor and refuse is an old one. Yeats said ..."in the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart." ...Visual art is the same, and that is one of its strengths. Artists cannot begin antiseptic abstraction, like philosophers with their notepads, or theoretical physicists at their blackboards. They have to begin in media res...so it is the artist's task to discern somehow what is worth saving, and what can be transformed, and finally to crawl out of the morass."

--What Painting Is James Elkins

Made the scene
Week to week
Day to day
Hour to hour
The gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side

-The Doors