Tag: birds

Birb journal

I have yet to find anyone who keeps bird notes beyond a list on ebird, so I setup my notebook my own way… Little bit log book, little bit nature journal, little bit grimoire.

Sharing because I love looking at other people’s notebooks so maybe you do too.

Photo of a bright blue notebook with a red elastic and pen loop and two ribbon bookmarks

Three sections: a big list, notes by species, and dated session notes… I am contemplating adding a section for omens 🔮

Photo of a handwritten notebook page. Contents Section 1: Life List Section 2: Bird Notes Section 3: Dated Notes

People have different rules for life lists… I have never been a serious birder but I have been a casual birder my whole life. Lot of girl guide badges and relatives who always bring binoculars. So I started my list from the beginning, from memory.

Photo of a handwritten notebook spread. Life List of Birds dedicated to Canada Geese, my first bird memories. A table spans both pages. Columns: #, Common Name, Latin Name, First Confirmed Encounter (Date, Place), Notes. Several birds are listed, starting with Canada Goose.

I thought about including birds I saw in zoos or rescue programs, but when I reflected on animals I have seen both caged and free I decided not too. It’s really different seeing flamingos on the loose.

Most of my notebooks are various grimoires so I am in the habit of dedicating them. Seemed apropos to dedicate each section of this one to a bird.

To make bird notes easy to look up I numbered them in the same order as the life list, but I feel no pressure to fill them all in. I don’t usually reserve sections in notebooks but this seemed worth it. Most commercial/pre-printed bird journals have a reserved section for each species.

Same as the bird list, I added old memories here.

Photo of an open notebook. Each page is divided in half by a horizontal line, and each block is numbered: 71, 72, 73, 74. 74 is filled out: Northern Saw-Whet Owl -- Aegolius acadicus. 24 Sep 2017-- Simon noticed a songbird ruckus out the bedroom window and spotted a lottle owl. Got to watch it all afternoon until it flew off after dark. Marion helped ID from a photo.

I like including notes by bird because it gives an easy way to figure out where to find them. I organize my urban foraging notebook this way too, by plant, so I can easily figure out options for gathering public fennel or plums or whatever.

Video from the day of that Northern Saw-whet bird note in 2017. Little owl sleeping in the city, directly outside my third floor bedroom window. Seems like sleeping in a windy tree might feel similar to sleeping on a boat.

I love this photo because you can see a chickadee perched above the owl, screaming, which is how I notice owls 90% of the time.

Photo taken through a window-- the frame and the slats of blinds are visible. Outside in a green leafy maple tree is a small owl and an even smaller chickadee

Dated notes section is the one part i did not add any retroactive info to. Just free pages to add notes from outings and classes if i want to. My goal is to include sketches even if they aren’t great.

Photo of a handwritten notebook page. Dated Notes - dedicated to Snow Owls and migration. 1 January 2026- Panama Flats (suburban wetland) Victoria BC with [redacted] There is a list of birds, a simple sketch of a turkey vulture wing, and a note that other birders explained turkey vultures have translucent wing feathers, unlike eagles or ravens

Other things I might eventually add to the bird journal: a checklist organized by bird family, space for goals like learning more local bird calls, and, for real, notes on bird omens because they are so dramatic sometimes.

Lol I just want to add that this is a photo of white paper that I took outdoors with southern exposure literally at noon. PNW winter gloom is no joke.

Berry names for birds

I heard one of my favourite bird songs in Coquitlam last night (kʷikʷəƛ̓əm territory), a loopy upward spiral song belonging to the Swainson’s Thrush.

They were singing in a tree in a friend’s yard where my kiddo had been picking salmonberries.

Just like this:

I realized I hadn’t thought about the Swainson’s Thrush since I learned about the idea of using bird names for birds so I went looking for non-eponym common names.

Some Wikipedia editor loves that bird song as much as I do, because after Olive-Backed Thrush they listed Reverbius Maximus Harmonius.

I realized even harder, that since the last time I heard Swainson’s Thrushes singing I had read the excellent book Held By The Land, by Sḵwx̱wú7mesh herbalist Leigh Joseph.

She mentions a story about the thrushes singing to make the salmonberries ripen, and I remember that reading that made me yelp in delight because even I, who have picked salmonberries maybe three times, associate those bird songs and those berries.

I re-read that page of Held By The Land just now, and she gives another name for the Swainson’s Thrush: Salmonberry Birds. I think I’ll go with that for my #BirdNamesForBirds.

7 wrens, sets of sets

seven wrens

Look-alike wrens and the art of using field marks.

I was thinking about sets of sets when I came across this set of similar wrens, discussing the collections of identifying marks that make up a distinguishable bird species.

The same site has a lovely little discussion of preparing the mind to see birds.

Experts say that when we lose something, before we begin our search to find the lost thing we should picture the object in our minds. This kind of “visualization” causes the brain to do something wonderful. On the one hand, it appears to filter out many unnecessary sightings but, on the other, if something even remotely resembling the lost object comes into view, the mind seems to “jump” at it.

Power of pattern matching.

G-rated YouTube porn, feathers.

I ran into this while I was looking for info about whether found feathers can have any germs or mites or whatever (probably not). I love the wealth of g-rated porn that has blossomed under YouTube’s anti-nudity terms of service. I don’t think they intended to create a video sharing service where only kinky sexplay is allowed (watching women fart, smelling socks…), but I guess that’s a fairly predictable side-effect of banning mainstream, tab-a-slot-b, show-the-boobs sex in an online space.

So far I haven’t found anything especially subversive— lots of groomed women and muscular men, lots of hypergender, whatever— but I actually like this tickling video because the tickler and the ticklee seem to have actual communication with each other. “OK, OK,” feet flex, feet relax. That’s kind of magic to see on YouTube.