I caught it out of the corner of my eye last summer: six broccoli plants in a row, taking a bow in a rolling wave, like stumpy Rockettes. It didn’t make sense but it was graceful and lovely. And then I noticed the choreographer: a crow had taken off abruptly from one end of the broccoli bed and set them rocking. It reminded me that another thing that invariably makes me happy is wingbeats. Wingbeats! The flappination of air!
Everybody’s all about the bird songs, but I like wingbeats so much that sometimes I stand under the bird feeder just to hear them properly. I still don’t know that many bird songs but I can distinguish different species’ wingbeats at my feeder with my eyes closed. And as long as I keep them closed I’ll never know I’m wrong.
Dave and I were on a trail on Mt. Hood one time. It was a dark narrow corridor, the trees nearby on both sides and meeting just above our heads. Then there was this sensation, a throb, a premonition. Like your last breath before the Rapture. And a moment later a raven came up from behind and flew right over us, slow, not much faster than we were walking, so that we had time to feel its majestic percussion. Flap. Flap. Flap. I’m telling you, it was holy. And so much better than the Second Coming, in that we didn’t have to worry if it was too late to join the right team. We knew we were exactly where we belonged: on our home planet, which we get to share with an iridescent black angel.
Pigeons, on the other hand, have many fine qualities, but I don’t care. They kind of bug me. And one of the things that bugs me about pigeons is how noisy their wingbeats are. Looks like they’re smacking their own wings together over their heads, and that’s just so inelegant and sloppy. That’s if you can get them in the air to begin with. Their indifference to being stepped on bugs me too. Weird shiny little head-bobbers with a bad diet. Even the iridescence is all wrong. Ravens shimmer in a shifting sheen of purple and green. Pigeons look like an oil slick.
But I do know Studley’s wingbeats. Flibberty flibberty. They’re a certain pitch and a certain speed and, most important, a certain distance away. Like, if they end up on your hat? It’s Studley.
The sound of a normal wingbeat has to do with the air turbulence. But owls have engineered fluff on the leading edges of their wings to muffle their sound and can fly almost silently. This is real handy if you want to sneak up on a shrew. And it’s right considerate too, from the shrew’s standpoint. It’s bad enough getting turned into an owl pellet without having to suffer that last bit of panic and dread.
When it’s my time to go I hope an owl brings the news. If not, a chickadee will do. That’s it’s own kind of rapture.
Merry Christmas, y’all. Here’s something: listen for the wingbeats!
Well, this was certainly a thoughtful read… and a reminder to do more stopping and smelling the roses, or more listening for those wing beats. Murr, Merry Christmas… and as Bogart says at the end of Casablanca, I think this is the beginning of a bloggy friendship. :^)
Of all the web logs and all the social media in all the world, I'm glad you walked into mine.
Haha! Thanks Murr!
Now I know what it will sound like if Dave sneaks up and says hello.
He is a very frightening man.
That was beautiful — thanks and a
Merry Christmas to you and Dave. And Studley too!
We're saving up a Special Christmas Worm for him. (Studley.)
Wingbeats are thrilling and I heard them from the tiny chickadee. Merry Christmas!
I love that little dude. (Studley.)
Birds have been my very favorite species ever since I was a toddler. (Yes, that includes humans.) There has always been something about them that resonated with me. I really hope that they manage to outlive us… that they are not destroyed utterly when we eventually meet our extinction. They managed to outlive the non-avian dinosaurs. Hopefully, these small winged dinosaurs will outlast us as well.
YES. Your final sentence says it for me.
Some of them will outlast us. Best I can do.
Studley has a lovely wingbeat sound. Usually, it is the whir of hummingbird wings that attract my attention while bent to my task of tending the plants/ground.
Merry Christmas & may 2021 treat us all a bit better.
We've got them too, all winter!
I love raven wingbeats! They are very distinctive. Yesterday on the way to work I drove by the harbor and a bald eagle flew along with me, but about 20 yards off to my left for about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, I had my window closed because it is winter. Otherwise I could have yelled, "Good Morning" to it!
Wait a minute, what harbor? I must be confused about where you live. Also, what's "work?"
The harbor of Grand Marais, Minnesota. A little south of Canada on Lake Superior. Work is a necessary evil in my world. You know, in order to make my "freedom payments".
It sounds chilly.
Merry all the holidays of the season to you, Murr, Dave, Stanley and all of you in the comment gallery. You are all so entertaining, especially in these days of isolation. And a fervent wish for a bright, shiny 2021.
Second, third, and fourth that.
We have ravens in town but have only spotted one in our yard once. I wish it would happen more often! Our resident Anna's hummingbird communicates by thrumming his wings especially loudly just behind my head when I am gardening near his feeder. My wife insists that it is a greeting, perhaps even a thank you for feeding him, but I suspect he is telling me to stay away from his nectar supply. Thank you for another lovely posting!
I was filling my hummingbird feeders last year and a cheeky fellow came right in and hovered a few inches from my eye. I love seeing them, but that was way too close!
Ah, yes, Jeremy – the lovely little Anna's. In the early 1980s, while living in Hacienda Heights CA, an Anna's built her tiny nest in a bush that overhung the wall around my apartment's patio. It was a "lifer" for me, as were the Eurasian collared doves that lived in the complex and the Harlequin duck that I found at Boca Chica. It was easy getting lifers on my first forays from the Midwest.
; )
Jeremy, I like your wife's attitude, but I don't think Anna's hummingbirds thank us for anything!
Wingbeats is something I almost never hear, there is so much other noise around here. I do hear the whirring of the crested pigeons if they get startled enough to take off in a hurry.
That might be what I like about wingbeats–that it has to be quiet to hear them!
Studley is Adorable and he does Tricks! I Love the sound of Wingbeats too, tho' I don't share your bias of Pigeons. I have to respect that they're the one Bird that has really adapted to our annoying presence on this Earth with aplomb. Perhaps that is why, as a Species, we show bias against them, I dunno? Seems any of the things not at the top of the Food Chain that have figured out a way to Outsmart us just piss Humans off and are now Nuisance Animals/Insects, because they're thriving in Spite of us? We're so arrogant like that… tho' I do rather Hate Roaches and Scorpions, so I guess my Human bias is showing too towards some Species that will surely be here long after we're NOT?!
Crows, also, have adapted admirably to human presence. And, as you say, a lot of humans despise them. Perhaps they remind those people of their own worst qualities. I have heard that we dislike in others that which we find and dislike in ourselves. Personally, I love crows. They are so smart and community-oriented.
Even Pigeons are okay with me. We don't get as many of them anymore since the hawks have been using our backyard as a Whole Foods.
In the bird book I wrote that has yet to be published by anyone, I inserted a note from a (nonexistent) editor: "Uneven. Can you say something nice about pigeons?" And I wrote: pigeons make terrific falcon food.
Paul and I are not fashed by the hawks eating the occasional pigeon or dove. We just shrug and say "Birds gotta eat.". And it's not like we don't do our share of eating other creatures.
Wing whirrs (or whomps, if the bird is way huger) are one of Nature's more efficacious remedies for Life's woes. My aural treats are the wing whirrs of dragonflies, but Studley and Co run the odes very close. So here, for your delectation, are some Coal Tits from Loch Garten in the Scottish Highlands: https://vimeo.com/485677684