Catch of the Day

According to my birding book, Point No Point is “Kitsap County’s destination birding site.�? Unfortunately, my recent trip there might suggest otherwise. Two hours of walking and climbing over driftwood netted me a few gull pictures and this:

Perhaps the pair of Bald Eagles flying overhead explained the lack of birds, but the most memorable moment of the walk came when two large dogs charged me and stood growling and barking at me not much more than two feet away while their owner assured me that they wouldn’t bite, though it was less than comforting knowing they wouldn’t come when he called them.

My trip to the Nature Conservancy’s Foulweather Bluff Reserve wasn’t any more rewarding, birdwise. My photography was limited to some interesting shells:

and this oddity:

It may be a starfish, but, if so, it has more arms than any starfish I’ve ever seen. Still, after twenty-some years of contributing to The Nature Conservancy it was nice to actually visit one of the places I’d helped preserve, even if all I saw was a Great Blue Heron and a flock of Mallards off in the distance.

The catch of the day, though, came at Theler Wetlands where I enjoyed visiting with Butch who spotted this Ringed-Necked Pheasant I’ve seen at a distance several times but never managed to get close to. Today he was so busy eating grain someone had left on the trail that he didn’t look up until I had gotten so close that my telephoto lens could only get a head shot:

He’s no Kingfisher, but he was beautiful. Just seeing him up close made my day. Probably time to admit that I’m easy.

Environmental Action

You may have noticed my lack of political activity here lately, since there seems to be little to be done in terms of elections, but I have been active in my support of environmental organizations.

Mostly I’ve been donating money to various organizations, particularly local ones, but I’ve also continued to use services like Defenders of Wildlife or Environmental Defense to let my legislators know that I support strong environmental action.

The hardest part of this is simply keeping track of which actions I’ve already participated in, since I get emails from other organizations, too.

I realize that legislators don’t take these kind of actions as seriously as phone calls or regular written mail, but I try to personalize most of emails I send rather than merely pushing a button. I also try to limit my comments so that my legislators don’t think I’m some kind of crank who has nothing better to do than write letters to them.

Still, I assume any action is preferable to no action.

Birding Port Townsend

The best part of birding has been that it has made me search out new places. For instance, last Sunday we headed out for Fort Lagler and Fort Worden, both near Port Townsend. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that they were rather large forts during WWII and contained major artillery emplacements. I was surprised to discover that there’s still a major Naval installation located nearby and spent considerable time speculating what the Navy could be doing on such a large island. However, Leslie wouldn’t let me drive up to the front gate and see if we could get in, especially since my hair is nearly pony-tail length again.

Most of the time, though, was spent watching ducks I’ve never seen before. In fact I spotted this flock of Buffleheads next to the road before we got to either park and insisted on stopping beside the narrow road as cars roared by. Unfortunately, they were wise enough to stay off shore and move further off shore whenever I pointed my camera their way. Sadly, it turns out that white heads are rather difficult to expose correctly:

At Fort Lagler, I discovered this Green-Winged Teal floating in a small lagoon formed by a WW II firing range:

My favorite picture of the day, though, is of this Harlequin duck, which breeds in river streams but spends the winter on coastal waters:

Delighted by the sightings but tired from walking and being buffeted by the strong winds of an incoming storm, we retreated to Port Townsend to visit art galleries and discover some delightful art by
Marvin Oliver and particularly by
Donna Caulton Unfortunately after my recent purchase of cameras and lenses, I was limited to purchasing note cards and eating out at one of Port Townsend’s fine restaurants.

On the way out of town, we took the advice of the excellent A Birder’s Guide to Washington and stopped at a small city park called Kah Tai Lagoon, and spotted this pair of, what we think are, Eurasian Wigeons:

I’m still amazed to discover birds I had no idea existed in places I’d never visited less than fifty miles away from my birthplace. Thank goodness I’ve seen less than half of the ducks that are supposed to be seen locally so I have reasons to continue to be amazed.

I used to take pride in how many places in the state I’d hiked and other people hadn’t even heard of, but it’s a little humbling to realize just how much of the state I really don’t know and haven’t experienced.

Kizer’s “Thrall”

I was hard pressed to pick a favorite poem from “The Eighties� section of Kizer’s collected works for here she turns from a sometimes strident declaration of women’s rights to a quieter understanding of herself and her role in creating and, ultimately, freeing herself, from the bonds that would bind all of us to our roles in life.

Perhaps my favorite poem in the section is “Final Meeting� where she describes her last visit to poet James Wright. It was also hard to ignore the more famous “Bitch,� but I found “Thrall� equally moving, and perhaps more revealing of the kinds of insights she focuses on in these poems.

THRALL

The room is sparsely furnished:
A chair, a table, and a father.

He sits in the chair by the window.
There are books on the table.
The time is always just past lunch.

You tiptoe past as he eats his apple
And reads. He looks up, angry.
He has heard your asthmatic breathing.

He will read for years without looking up
Until your childhood is safely over:

Smells, untidiness, and boring questions;
Blood from the first skinned knees
To the first stained thighs;
The foolish tears of adolescent love.

One day he looks up, pleased
At the finished product,
Now he is ready to love you!

So he coaxes you in the voice reserved
For reading Keats. You agree to everything.

Drilled in silence and duty,
You will give him no cause for reproach.
He will boast of you to strangers.

When the afternoon is older
Shadows in a small room
Fall on he bed, the books, the father.

You read aloud to him
“La Belle Dame sans Merci.�

You feed him his medicine.
You tell him you love him.

You wait for his eyes to close at last
So you may write this poem.

If you read carefully enough, you probably don’t have to read past the first stanza to understand this poem, though it’s certainly easier to comprehend the second line after you’ve finished the entire poem. It’s probably not a good sign when you consider your father part of the “furnishings.�

Of course, it’s not a good sign that he doesn’t look up “Until your childhood is safely over,� though it might be a relief when “One day he looks up, pleased/At the finished product … ready to love you!�

The ambivalence of this hate/love relationship is probably not truly revealed until you read Keats’ “La Belle Dame sans Merci� and read the lines, “La Belle Dame sans Merci/ Hath thee in thrall!� and begin to wonder whom the title refers to. Is it a mutual agony, where “Pale warriors, death-pale were they all?� Can there ever really be a true, loving relationship when children are treated this way?

And, if she doesn’t love her father, why does she have to wait until he closes his eyes before she can write this poem?

Though I may ultimately have been influenced to choose this poem by some recent entries on fellow bloggers’ sites, it strikes me as a powerful reminder of the ambivalence many feel toward parents. It is certainly a relationship all of us must come to terms with to feel whole.