Once upon a time we wrote on this page: “A Big Breathing Calendar.” It had to do with the nature of time and the time of nature.

We just revisited that innocent old post for a reason we’ll get to in a moment. But first, gotta say: we were blown away by its dateline. March 2010.

If you were with us fifteen years ago you might remember our words. But if you haven’t seen it before, no worries. We’re hitting the concept of time again because it’s just so damn timely.

Today was the first warm day in a while. Late February can bring melting snow and re-introduce us to predictable avian doggedness.

Which means today the year’s first Red-winged Blackbird was seen around here. On a reed near a thawing pond. Shining black with that show-stopping red patch.

And we thought of the words that hit long ago at a similar moment with similar bird activity. The wild world is just a “big breathing calendar.”

Whatever is going on in our messy human business at the moment, the birds out there mind their own time zone. And they make no note of us. But it’s fun to note them as we barrel through the years.

Red-winged Blackbirds have started to come back. Proving again that their world is a kind of calendar. They’re doing their thing, and the calendar is doing its thing. Again.

A friend sent us a picture of a massive hawk overhead. It was taken in the American West, and even though field marks can be hard to pin down, we’re calling this a Ferruginous Hawk.

Another contender would be a Red-tailed Hawk, but there’s no hint of red on this guy’s tail. Not that there needs to be. That’s what makes hawk identification a variation-rich challenge.

It’s not exactly iron-colored (ferruginous) either, but according to our best guess about all this, we’re stubbornly going with Ferruginous Hawk.

Maybe it’s because we like that name. And even if we’re wrong today, it represents a symbol we used in a story written long ago.

It was named after this bird, and we included it in our “Stories” section because we like to ofer more to read than just our “Daily Sightings,”  although they’re the meat and potatoes.

So we invite you to check out the Stories section, and also get into the Ferruginous Hawk, if you haven’t already.

Today, more than ever, it’s a cautionary tale. Flying with an unforgettable wingspan over a world of too many cautionary tales.

All that talk about eagles last week brought the subject to mind. It was about eagles with a capital E, but those Super Bowl ass-kickers are not the subject.

They just got us thinking about other rare raptors we’ve watched. And where and when they popped in and out of our life.

As a Chicago kid you had little chance of seeing a wild eagle. You’d go to Starved Rock Park and hope. Later on you’d hike the serious wilds of the U.P.—aptly named “up” for its position on the map—Michigan’s unsung hero of untamed wilderness.

There you saw eagles. Young Bald Eagles with brown heads, mature ones with white heads. All with mean eyes and muscles. 

Later you saw them in Alaska where they were common as pigeons. They were flying, coasting, sitting in treetops, and one met your gaze, defiantly saying: “no fear.”

You saw them in Yellowstone and also in Florida, one circling Disney World of all places. In Arizona you saw a Golden Eagle, its coloration highlighted in lowering sunlight.

So, yeah, Eagles with a captial E were in the news. But their namesakes were in your memory.

And recently, incredibly, there was one in your backyard. You have a puny pond back there, and in a tree overlooking the flat water sat a massive Bald Eagle. It reminded you of those on the Chilkat River near Hanes, Alaska where, eagles were common as pigeons.

But this one was in your backyard. Super.

Meaning this: On a mid-winter day you take your binoculars and head into the wilds where your gut tells you it’s going to be pretty dead as far as finding birds. Still, there could be something. That’s the fun of it, the “could be.”

Could be you’ll spot a Snowy Owl. But in your experience that’s always been the “somewhere else bird.” And it seems to know that.

Maybe you’ll see a Pileated Woodpecker, rare but not impossible. Could be you’ll almost step on a pheasant being pinned by a Red-tailed Hawk and they’ll both flap away in a rush, the pheasant dripping blood, the hawk glaring at you with pissed off eyes.  (This once happened!).

Could be you’ll see a White winged Crossbill, something rarer than a junco or nuthatch. Your mind wanders as the trail wanders. Your memory is full of birds well remembered. You might not have birds in the present, but you’ve got them in the past.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Yeah, Faulkner said it. Now you’re saying it. And you’re remembering good times in the living past…

Spotting what you thought was a Scarlet Tanager in these woods, then discovering it was an even rarer Summer Tanager. You’ve got that in the past and can visit it on this barren day.

You’ve got the memory of two breeds of Cuckoos seen here. You’ve got Indigo Buntings iridescent in last summer’s sun, and a comical Woodcock waddling off. There was a Yellow-breasted Chat, too. The list goes on.

Even if you haunt this old trail on a bleak and birdless day, you’ve got the past. It doesn’t disappoint. Hell, it’s not even past.

Maybe you saw the news story about a guy in Cook County, Illinois who saw almost 300 different kinds of birds there in one year. The guy even saw a Golden Eagle. And a Short-tailed Shearwater (common in Australia, not Lake Michigan!). Around here that’s the avian equivalent of a Wrigley Field homer.

He added these to his honor roll of birds seen in one year and broke a record. This guy’s not just a two-fisted birdwatcher. He’s a role model.

We started this blog (which grew into something more—not sure how to describe it: e-zine?) in order to make the simple claim to an indifferent world that the image of a birdwatcher is not dweeby, but rugged.

Birdwatchers—as we’ve said on our home page, and throughout fifteen years of scribbled stories—are tough mothers. (Not real mothers, necessarily, though they’re birdwatching, too, but the slang kind.)

Point is: the guy who scored all those sightings in Cook County in one year is a wild animal of a birdwatcher. Beyond tough. Two-fisted in the extreme. Dogged, determined, devoted to an outdoor sport not normally known for heroes. But around here, yeah, he’s a hero.

A two-fisted birdwatcher to make us other two-fisted birdwatchers proud. And a little better at what we do. Hey, was that a Short-tailed Shearwater skimming over the lake? Who knows? Well—truth is, we do. What’s more, you do.

Why am I pulling into the same parking area of the same woods at the same time of day to walk the same trail and see the same things?

A familiar question on a familiar day. I shrug it off and go for a walk. It’s what I do. If I didn’t, I’d be somebody else.

I see a sparrow and figure it’s not worth a second look. But I focus the binoculars on it anyway. And, hey, there’s some unexpected white and yellow. It’s a White-throated Sparrow.

Nothing rare, but not an everyday bird. Kinda cool.

Moving on, I notice there’s some new coyote scat on the trail.

Scat’s an academic word. A coyote researcher I knew talked about it a lot. He had the improbable name, “Wiley.” As in “Wile E. Coyote” from the Roadrunner cartoons.

I’m smiling about this name as I move on. And the thought hits: You never walk in the same woods twice.

This is a spin-off of the famous line, “You can’t step into the same river twice,” by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus.

I’m no scholar, but I do like Heraclitus. He was bummed out about the unstoppable passage of time. Some people call him the “weeping philosopher.”

As I walk, I’m thinking about how the “same river twice” idea extends to the “same woods twice” insight that I just stumbled upon while circling coyote shit.

I soon get interested in a Red-tailed Hawk above me, and have the thought that he’s probably the same hawk I see every time I’m here. It’s his territory.

Maybe he sees me, and thinks: “There’s that guy again, it’s his territory.” I smile. Better believe it pal, this is my territory. Never had that thought before. Something new in the woods.

I see a couple of crows. They’re smart, and I wondered if they were also watching me like a hawk. Maybe today’s bird-watching excursion was a two-way street.

Maybe it always is. Maybe the White-throated Sparrow was looking at this scruffy, army-jacket bum out of the corner of his eye, thinking, “Him again.”

Anyway, I’m having an okay time. The trail is familiar. The air’s bracing. The exercise is working out the kinks. The woods are sort of the same, and sort of different. As always.

~        ~         ~

If the above rings familiar, well what a memory you have. A similar report appeared here more than 14 years ago. After all that time, we’re still hitting the same woods twice, so it seems worth sharing with you twice.

You can be a mountain-climbing, forest-hiking, campfire building, tough nut who knows the hell out of birds and their habits and field markings and all that. But you still might know a little about subjects that break this stereotypical mold.

Like maybe you know a song or two from classical music or even Broadway. And you happen to remember the haunting “Music of the Night” from “The Phantom of the Opera.”

What does this have to do with the rugged sport of two-fisted birdwatching? Last night, while taking the pooch for a midnight bathroom hike in the snowy nighttime woods, you hear…the music of the night.

You know a fierce and fearsome Great Horned Owl is offstage in the dark. And he’s performing a great horned aria.

Bird related experiences are the meat and potatoes of these reports. Usually not about music, although not long ago we wrote about Melanie and her “new pair of roller skates.” And we once wrote about the late Dave Brubeck and “took five.”

Mostly we cover two-fisted birdwatching. Not music. But that “phantom” won’t shut up. The owl hidden in the treetops is hot to repeat that haunting solo in the dark. Hoo-hoo…hoohoo-hoo. Then again. The music of the night from the phantom of the forest.

The owl might’ve been excited because the pooch is a tempting midnight snack. But the pooch was going home in one piece. Yet, the lonesome music of the night continues in the woods. Wild.

The nice thing about winter birding is you can see through the forest. No leaves. Mostly branches, limbs, twigs and trunks. With space between to spot birds.

You don’t mind being cold, and don’t mind snow and ice underfoot. Because a cool sighting could be waiting around the next curve in the trail. It could be real, or maybe something else.

Today you come upon a giant old tree, long dead but standing strong, tall and timeless. Sure enough, on one of its branches, there’s “the story bird.” It flutters, it chatters. A Tailorbird.   

Specifically, a “Common Tailorbird,” resident of South Asian jungles and suburban Mumbai backyards. But here it is. The most interesting sighting in today’s empty woods.

Its name: “Darzee,” remembered as the heroic busybody in Rudyard Kipling’s tale about a kickass mongoose and deadly cobras. On this cold day Darzee is not in hot India. He’s in your American freezing forest.

What tropical bird could be so far from home? A crazy one? Hey—Darzee may be flighty but he’s not crazy. Just imaginary. You nod to him. No need for binocs. You see him fine, this unforgettable bird from Kipling’s unforgettable tale.

Few other birds can be seen in these empty winter woods today. But you’ve got Darzee. You’re not complaining. This bird helped a fierce mongoose save a family from killer cobras. Well, let Kipling handle those details. And maybe share them with a kid. For now, you’re just glad to remember an old story and glad to spot an invisible bird, a story bird.

But then, there’s always something worth finding in the woods, whatever the season, whatever the weather. Something to take your mind off all that’s going on outside the woods.

After a long winter’s hike, you’re nursing a beer in your favorite restaurant bar. You’d been out all morning looking for a Snowy Owl, but didn’t see one.

You’re no stranger to this bar, or this beer. Both are old friends. But there’s something different today. The place feels nicer. Why is that?

You gotta think about it. But first, you gotta hit the men’s room.

There’s a big guy in there who got stuck watching his kid while his wife shops in the neighborhood. He’s changing the kid’s diaper on the sink.

The atmosphere’s worse than usual in the men’s room. Plus, you can’t get at the sink.

It’s a deciding moment.

You’re pissed off because you didn’t see the Snowy Owl that many people have been talking about on the internet. Now this.

You want to give the guy a dirty look in the mirror, and say something like “cheeez!” Then leave, and slam the door.

Something stops you. Instead, you say, “Ah, the joys of fatherhood.”

You smile at the guy as he struggles. He looks up and says, “Tell me about it.” And smiles back. Now you both feel good instead of bad.

Back at the bar, it hits you. Why the place feels nicer.

It’s the lights. This restaurant bar is lit up with little holiday lights. They’re strung across the ceiling, over the bottles, around doorways.

You hate to say it—it’s not a two-fisted comment—but they’re kind of pretty. They give the place a…glow

Normally, you don’t care about things in a bar being pretty. Except for tall, blond Donna who sometimes sits with you.

No, you don’t care that they’re pretty. But you gotta wonder, why don’t they have these little lights all year ‘round?

~

The above was first published here in 2011. The sentiment hasn’t changed. Even though we still haven’t seen a Snowy Owl!

Can you call a solstice “nature?” Everything’s nature, but especially the environmental stuff, the outdoors, and this morning during a dogwalk at the usual time, the usual morning light just wasn’t there. Nature. Non-negotiable.

Today was and is December 21, winter solstice. It’s always a little unclear if the night before or after this day is the longest one of the year, but what’s not unclear is that it’s pretty dark at dawn.

Instead of this darkness being challenging, it’s encouraging. It underscores the implacable nature of things in the natural world. During the winter solstice, you’re not going to wake up to morning light streaming into the room. Non negotiable.

And on your walk you might see a coyote with steaming breath staring hungrily at your pooch, and you might see a few freezing squirrels who were smart enough to take care of their nuts, and you might see a cardinal, some nuthatches and sparrows. Hardy winter birds you expect—expectations met.

But you won’t see a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, or any hummingbird. You won’t see a Veery or a Vireo. No cuckoos either, Yellow-billed or Black-billed; they’re not cuckoo enough to stay so they migrate. Non-negotiable.

How does the dimly lit morning of the winter solstice connect to thoughts of birds who migrate and those who don’t? Easily. Comfortably. They both calmly illustrate that this is the way the world works, with or without our involvement or understanding.

It’s not the world of human stuff, but the real world of planetary rotation, of bird migration, the non-negotiable indifferent nature of nature. Oddly, this is comforting as hell, although as you crunch through the coating of solstice snow, you’re cold as hell. Still you’re loving it all.

It’s dark around here at 6AM. Starting to lighten by 6:30, dog-walk time. Today was single-digit cold. Like “one.” The ultimate single digit. Leafless trees stood jagged against a silver-gray dawn. Their silhouettes looked strong.

Back home, we loaded the backyard feeder with seeds. Hands freezing. Quickly, cold birds came. We watched from the kitchen window. We don’t kid ourselves: this is not “birdwatching.” Just feeder watching.

The birds are cold. Puffed up. The parka worn during our dog-walk comes to mind. Puffed up. Feathers in there somewhere.

Birds crowd around out there. Word spreads. They are quick and busy. They have natural parkas. And our seeds. December is always cold here. No problem.

There are sparrows and juncos. Chickadees and nuthatches. A couple of woodpeckers. A blue jay. A shock-red cardinal.

They’re scarfing free seeds on a new day in another season. They do this every year. A one-degree morning is just another day on the job. They’d make it through the winter even without our seeds.

They’re Chicagoans. Tough guys.

After a lazy few weeks of falling down on the job by not going into the wild for exploration, solitude and the spotting of cool birds and animals, there’s guilt at play.

Come on, if you’re a two-fisted birdwatcher, get off your butt. Hit the trail.

Pull on your beat-up boots, get binocs in your fists and lose yourself in the wild for a while. So yeah, you go. But then—whoa: the day you pick to break that run of slothfulness is wildly cold.

The wind chill factor (a dubious indicator popular with weather reporters) is flat-out vicious. Way below freezing. Even below zero! We’re talking “bitter cold,” another one of those everyday phrases surprisingly coined by Shakespeare, and he nailed it.

But you’re not in the woods to think about English Lit—you’re here to think about a jackpot sighting that would defeat discomfort from this deep freeze in deep woods. That probably won’t happen.

Still…considering the time, place and isolation—the goal bird on this hike is a Pileated Woodpecker.

You look. You listen for jackhammer blows against frozen wood. You march on. But the most interesting thing in the woods is only your breath which comes out like smoke.

No Pileated Woodpecker to welcome you back to this favorite old wilderness.. The only Pileateds on your hike are the ones that never fly out of your memory. Fun to revisit those reliable, unforgettable sightings in the mental scrapbook.

Enough for now. You leave the frozen forest to its lifeless, silent self, yet you feel vindicated. You’ve broken the ice. Literally. You’ve hit the trail, an overdue greeting to wild winter which, against common assumptions, is a fine time for birdwatching. (More about that in a future post.)

You’ll be back soon—wind chills notwithstanding. And if something good gets spotted you’ll report it. Right here.

After all the usual things to be thankful for, a two-fisted birdwatcher on this cold gray Midwest morning is thankful for a seed feeder dangling outside the kitchen window. And the crazy action it stirred up.

It’s given food for thought…as well as food for the birds of Thanksgiving. Which are…bear with us on this—common House Sparrows.

Nothing special to look at. Drab, brownish gray, few interesting splotches of pattern… small… and, for sure “common.” In fact, they’re the most common birds in the world!

They originated somewhere in Eurasia. Got “introduced” to New York in the 1850s, then, bam, within a blink they’re found from Canada to Panama and everywhere in between. Especially outside the kitchen window scarfing down seeds and making woodpeckers and jays wait for a turn.

Today, within hours, a ravening flock of common House Sparrows emptied a full feeder. This is a clue to their rapid success in America and everyplace else where these born opportunists have spread, or been introduced, including New Zealand!

House Sparrows—by whatever quirk of fate—are super adapted to living side-by-side with humans. They love our food scraps and our buildings where they find nesting places that other birds would disdain. They go where we go, live where we live, and like it.

Maybe that’s why we should be thankful. But wait. Thankful for a drab and common little bird? Not a flashy raptor, colorful jay, exotic tanager or a once-in-a lifetime “accidental” blown around the world for life-listers and life-lusters to drool over?

No, nothing like that. Maybe we should be thankful that at least one species of bird actually likes us. Better yet, maybe the subject of our thankfulness isn’t something to dwell upon. Instead, let’s turn the focus onto the common House Sparrow (for a change) and think about what IT’S thankful for.

The answer is kind of flattering. Us.

I could give you the hawk’s name, but names change. This one’s gonna change. You could look it up. Or see the footnote below. For now, let’s go with “Wingman.”

It fits for a big—and I mean big—rusty-brown hawk that flew alongside my car yesterday. Just him and me. Wingtips inches from my window as we sped side-by-side.

I’ve seen eagles—Bald and Golden—and Ospreys. I’m no newcomer to raptor heavyweights. But this close-up partnership was a new trip. We were on a quiet street, no sidewalks, lotsa wildlife. Squirrels, rabbits, and when you walk the dog at night you watch for skunks.

What happened yesterday afternoon is that this big hawk must have just found fresh roadkill or maybe he caught a bird. We’ve had flocks of fall robins and Cedar Waxwings. Lots of opportunity here for a suburban hunter.

He was on the street as I drove up behind him, interrupting lunch. He said “shit,” and took to the air with an angry flap of wide wings, then leveled off outside of my driver’s side window as I drove, near enough to touch.

We flew that way for a block. When we reached the T-bone intersection, he climbed quickly and grabbed the lowest branch of an old tree there. He glowered back at me. I said, I can relate, man. When I’m eating I also don’t like to be hassled.

But I was happy to have had that wild warplane of a bird just outside my window. Whatever the name of this guy is or will be—he’s “Wingman” around here.

* The American Ornithological Society announced that it will rename 70–80 bird species, including the Cooper’s hawk, starting in 2024. The Cooper’s hawk was named after William Cooper, a 19th-century naturalist. Its scientific name, Accipiter cooperii, also honors Cooper. We’re waiting to see what the new name will be. For today, it’s “Wingman.”

(A bit of time travel)

Today’s post is mainly one line. A simple link to some thoughts and also comments that appeared here twelve years ago. This gives the story a kind of rebirth. Out of the fog. Of time.

https://twofistedbirdwatcher.com/out-of-the-fog/

It’s a Peregrine Falcon. An odd word, peregrine. But bird names are gonna be what they’re gonna be. Peregrine means “wanderer” and that’s okay. Although you could apply it to most birds, creatures with wings and whims.

So where does “magic” come in?  There’s a novel—written by one of our own, the author of much of our two-fisted birdwatcher stuff—and we’ve mentioned it on the site, most recently in “Two-Fisted Library.” (It’s called “The Idea People,” and Amazon gives a rundown about the details.)

We’re not normally into recommending books, especially those from our own keyboards. But this one has a ton of two-fisted fun. And birds make some pretty interesting appearances, so it would be weirdly wrong to not turn you on to it.

One bird in a key (and possibly criminal?) role is a Peregrine Falcon. Is it magic? Not in the book—but on a hill outside of New York there was a kind of magic moment involving a non-fictional Peregrine, the book, and a friend of ours.

True story: we gave “The Idea People” to this friend, a guy who rarely reads novels. But he politely accepted it. As these things happen, the book sat unlooked-at for months. Then one day not long ago he wanted to get away from the city. He went for a hike in mountains a few hours out of New York. He took the book. Maybe he’d find a peaceful spot to sit and read a bit.

That’s what he did, and soon got into the story. He was at the part where a Peregrine Falcon drops out of the sky near a woman who had recently become lost in the wilds of the Colorado Rockies.

Then this happened:

A real-life Peregrine Falcon descended out of nowhere and perched on a rock near him. Magically, this coincided with the bird in the book showing up, too. The guy stopped reading. This was unreal.

Like most New Yorkers he could recognize a Peregrine because they make news there, hanging around tall buildings. Dark cheeks, sleek falcon form, brutal beak, spunky attitude, all that. The bird settled nearby and stared at him. Uncommon behavior for any bird, but especially a wild predator who likes to avoid humans.

And this happened while the guy was holding a book about a wild Peregrine who interacts in a surprising way with human characters in the mystery. The guy was amazed at this coincidence. He grabbed a photo of the bird with his phone.

The fact that this really happened is confounding, crazy, seemingly magical. At least that’s what the guy thought when he told us about it and sent his photo. He eventually finished the novel with new interest. Did he like it? He added a review on Amazon, but that’s his business.

We’re still marveling over his sighting that day in high country not far from New York City—and even though his photo is not pro-quality, it’s got a cool story to go with it. Man, what are the odds!