I'd like to share a passage from a wonderful novel I recently read, "The Yellow Birds" by Kevin Powers, which takes its place alongside Tim Obrien's "The Things They Carried", Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead", and Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front" -- this time the setting is the Iraq war. The protagonist is by a stream near his Richmond, VA home -- it's an magical experience most birders have had or at least can envision with a large wader but just can't express nearly as well:
"My feet were in the water, and the river ran docilely by and I was hardly a speck on the landscape and I was glad. An egret flew just over my shoulder and skimmed the water so close and I thought there was no way a body could be so close to the edge of a thing and stay there and be in control. But the tips of its wings skimmed along the water just the same. The egret didn't seem to mind what I believed, and it tilted some and disappeared into the glare of the gone sun and it was full of grace." I see that Brett Bonkamp's brilliant bit of Hammond's flycatcher satire has been censored from the archives. Thus, it seems that when posting especially as the Holidays approach and an insane 2017 comes to a close -- and while I enjoy a good put down as much as the next person -- perhaps we should all give a listen once again to John Prine's "People Putting People Down". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY0VmRR8FHU Or better yet, spend some time admiring his amazing canon listening to Sam Stone, (apropos the war novels, I guess), Hello in There, Souvenirs, Paradise, Angel from Montgomery or Lake Marie. Good flycatchers to all. L. Trachtenberg Ossining -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
