Welcome to The Birds are Calling. This blog is an outlet for my lifelong interest in natural history. I have a particular interest in birds, photography and writing, but I do not consider myself a birder, a photographer or a writer. Rather, I see myself as a naturalist using photography and story-telling to document nature and natural history, in particular birds and bird behavior. Why birds? As it turns out, when you are looking for birds you tend to see everything else that is out there along the way. Then there is the seemingly endless diversity in appearance, behavior, sounds and so much more. The Chilean Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda put it far more poetic than I can ever hope to express it.
From the snowy peaks to the sandy banks, to the volcanoes, beaches, pastures, rivers, rocks, cornfields, roads, waves – everywhere, birds. Birds, little birds, big birds, colourful birds, rare birds! Still and spying, singing and whistling, sparkling with the golden glitter of the sun, blending in with ash or dusk.
And flying! Flying through the freedom of the air, swift like arrows or slow like ships. Flying in different ways, pushing apart the sky or cutting through it like a knife, or sometimes, in the midst of mass migration, filling the universe with the immense flow of a passing horde.
Desde lo nevado hasta lo arenoso, pasando por volcanes, playas, potreros, ríos, rocas, techos, trigales, carreteras, olas, por todas partes pájaros. Pájaros, pajarines, pajarrazos, pajarintus, pajaramenes! Inmóviles y acechantes, cantantes y silbantes, reluciendo al rayo de oro, confundiéndose con ceniza o crepúsculo.
Y volando! Volando en la libertad del aire, rápidos como flechas o lentos como naves. Volando con estilo diferente, apartando el cielo o atravesándolo con cuchillos, o a veces en la plenaria multitud de la migración llenando el universo con el inmenso fluir de la pajarería.
Gotta go, the birds are calling, so in the spirit of John Muir, I must go now and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.
Studying nature in the Nalcahue wetlands (Chile). Yes, we do need to get a birding scope.
