Red-winged Blackbird

Marcia Claire Millican

Conspicuous commander,
comfortable atop the cattails.

Displaying proud patches,
resilient red and yellow.

Prolific with partners,
powerfully protective,

Loquacious and loud,
signaler of Spring.

Housing

by Olivia Armstrong

On sunrise air still wearing night’s cool chill
Chickadees arrive like small ideas
Soft, bright, insistent
They pepper the silence with their name
Tilting tiny black capped heads at the nesting box
As if reading a letter left just for them
Negotiation of wing, communion of feathers

House Wrens all spark and chatter
A tumble of brown, cocked-up tails
Certainty, declaring ownership of everything
Rapid vocal trills and harsh scolding calls
Belonging is always a conversation

Then the Nuthatches
Upside-down philosophers
Spiraling along the post
Testing wood, testing air, testing fate
A dance back and forth, claim and counterclaim
Fierce as hunger
No referee, no audience but the morning

The nesting box quietly waiting
A small promise of shelter, of risk, of future noise
Courage sometimes weighs less than a feather

The chickadees returned
once more
Before the sun claimed the sky
A brief, bright punctuation
on the sentence of the day

The Berry Walk

by Bobbie Morgan

he’s four
he walks with me
back home
after our afternoons together

I look around
he looks around
sometimes we hold hands
sometimes he wants to climb a tree

I teach him:
“step on a crack, break your mother’s back”
we wonder how did that become a sidewalk game for children

then he notices little red berries
growing on low plants
right by this sidewalk
right there
red berries

he stops

quickly picks three
and places them carefully on the sidewalk
says they are for the birds to eat
then he scampers on

this four year old
was not just with me
on this walk home

not just with me

Winter Harvest

by Carl Jensen

It is a satisfaction akin to gravity to find
what you are looking for. Birds: starlings, flickers,
wrens, woodpeckers light upon a hanging cake of suet.
In a furious ballet they each seize their due and leave
the basket swinging. A grey squirrel minces across
frosty soil gingerly pawing, then digging deeper
undeterred until it shoves practically its whole head
in to grasp a peanut.

Hunger rejoices when life offers suet or peanut,
and takes it. There are eyes that spend years seeking,
wondering if it will take a whole lifetime.
Yet love comes, and when it does
it is a satisfaction akin to flight,
to be found … and taken.

Creation

How a Bald Eagle alters my brain

by Jill McGrath

The Bald eagle visits us this morning,
settles on the pole above the receding tidal waters
of the Salish Sea. It’s eyeing this lightening sky,
lazily looking for prey. He tolerates
my cautious steps across the sand, my swim,
rarely turning his head. I’m insignificant,
clearly inedible, so he perches
unperturbed, regal, while children scurry
like crabs over the beach, hunting for shells.

The eagle shifts its claws,
gives a peeping proclamation. Great wings
extend outward, an eight-foot span,
solemn and grand as a full moon.
Feathers spread out like fingers,
and then he lifts up, effortless,
rising like he was born just for this,
meeting the invisible grace of air
with each stroke, like a downbeat,
here, here. I lose myself
gratefully, joyously,
suspended between moments —

like the feeling when a poem is forming
and my soul concentrates
deeply, like the eagle scanning for signs of life,
eyeing the waves for ripples
or flickering shadows below the surface.
I too am decoding the invisible,
immersed, then peering up
and out, only conscious of departure
as I arrive again.
He’s gone, soon a speck
in an ocean of salty air.

Now there’s a page before me, a scattering of words.
a visitation. Such luck to be present for this bird
and the words that trace its passage through the air.

Nesting Gourds

by Jill McGrath

Swimming in the Salish Sea,
stroke by stroke, a peaceful angling
toward a purplish horizon,
I’m counting strokes, holding steady
breaths, folding in and out.
I’m pushing the water
as greater currents tug or smooth
my way. This meditation anchors me
in a serene meld of sky and water.

Now I see the Purple Martins have returned
from Central or South America,
flitting back in pairs to their nesting gourds
on this cluster of decaying poles that guard
Secret Beach. Small chirps and chattering, a swirl
of songs and wings, they pause and flirt
then swoop down toward waves, aerial acrobats,
searching for insects or nesting materials,
clucking happily under
the watchful eyes of seagulls.

One male rests on a gourd and darts
his eyes side to side, alert yet calm,
feathers glossy with hues of royal
purple or lavender. Light gray scatters
the female’s chest and collar, a little
hood to lend her an extra air of grace
before she pops into the gourd, her tail
wagging. She flutters and hops around
her nest, comfortable, excited, her partner
zipping off on a new hunt, not minding
his eager audience onshore, taking photos,
standing on the shore with beaks
open in awe, fluttering
our sweaters a little to keep warm.

Call & Response

              To a Dark-eyed Junco

by Jill McGrath

Fleet traveler of our region, like a dandelion
tuft the wind whirls up and releases,
how do you find your way from Alaska to Mexico?
What magic imbues your instinctual reading of geography,
weather, and season? Only 6-8 inches, you’re a sparrow
that’s hard to find, wispy grays and white tail feathers
blend into the woodlands you favor.

In my palm would I feel your ounce of weight,
or just the tiny scratch of claws, the saucy poke
of your mini beak, or your puffiness
like cotton candy? On this branch
I observe your black eyes staring
at me like a jilted suitor
with a song like a tiny hammer tapping.

Do you ask, what can you give me?
I whistle back, take care, take care!

Light traveler

by Jill McGrath

One Black-chinned hummingbird whirs by,
dances at red bee balm in my garden,
allows my viewing.
A pause in life in air,
in awe, and then

speeds to the next one
sipping nectar. I know its bones are hollow
for how else can it defy gravity,
pass through this airy space
with that subtle wing-sound echoing
and gone?
You can’t blink!

These dancers, how they hang
just there and there,
shimmering feathers
A rainbow glint on eye.

Fledglings

by Linda Owens

Two ospreys perch on the tips
Of the tallest cedars at the forests edge.

I pick up my son and
Rush out to see them.

Their calls crowd the blue
Sky filling it with sound.

Three fledglings fly
into view in answer,
Wobbly wings of first flight
feathering the air.

One catches the wind and
Soars too high. Mother
Shrieks a warning. He tips
A mottled wing, circles, and returns.

I turn to see my son
Halfway up a tree. Stop!
I shriek. He freezes then
Starts to return. I run
to pluck him down.

The fish hawk tilts her head
At the noise of us below.
I wave, and hold him
Up for her to see.

Fly Away!

by Linda Owens

Thunk! Oh no… a bird hit a window.
I race to open the front door hoping to find nothing.
But there he lies on the cedar deck – a little fox sparrow.
Still, unnatural, on his back, little feet curled.
Ever so gently, I lift him up.
Put ruffled wings back in order, I stroke his tiny head and
with cupped hands, I rest him on my heart.
When I feel a foot tighten on my finger,
I risk a peek –
his beak is still open,
panting in that bird way, eyes wide in shock.

Cursing my windows,
I cradle his tiny essence telling him he is safe now.
I breathe healing for him – and for me, I think.
We sit and wait. So many questions arise.
Does he feel my heart beat? How small his heart must be.
Does he smell the dinner pizza on my hands? Where was he going?

The fact of his perfect completeness dumbfounds me.
I peek again – his beak is closed now,
his eyes are blinking.
I lift my hands away and he is free to go.
But he sits on my chest and turns his head
to stare at me. I smile as we see each other.
When you are ready, I tell him,
there’s no rush.
And he flies away.
I brush the tiniest feathers from my t-shirt,
Tucking the memory into my heart.

The Hawk

by Linda Owens

There’s a shift in the hurly burly
At the bird feeders,
A fluttering panic followed by silence.

What could halt the constant arrivals and departures?
My yard is busier than Heathrow.
Then I notice the Cooper’s hawk
perched on a cedar by the hot tub.
A magnificent giant beside
the now hidden nuthatches.

He too is here for his meal.
And who am I to cry out
and shoo him away?
Does he not need food
to fuel those magnificent
wings for flight?
To keep the shine in his eyes?

Who am I to try to
change the way of the world?
But I step outside anyway
to quietly speak to him
Because I too am part of this world.

Issue Page

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