Subject: Re: Ravine below St. Mark's
Date: Mar 21 21:52:32 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets,

BTW, '12 commandments of flaming' had me falling off my chair! How true, how
gloriously true! Thanks for the tips, Lisa! ;-) And thanks for 'Ravine'.

(snip)
>...and just listened, listened until I cried. Finches
>sing more sweetly than I imagine angels could, and so do Song Sparrows.
>I saw several House and what appeared to be Purple Finches, an American
>Goldfinch, a couple of flickers, and some sort of creeper-like bird I
>couldn't see long enough to identify. I heard the flickers call. And
>there were several other calls and songs I couldn't identify. There was
>no real need to, anyway, just as there's no need to pick out the oboe
>from other wind instruments in order to enjoy the entire orchestral
>chorus.

Can't resist. Someone once said the oboe is a wind that nobody blows good.

'Ravine' is a *nice* contemplation. To be surrounded by birds in song is
like being in a church with fine stained glass to fracture the light into
innumerable colors and shades. To be in dappled sunshine at the same time is
a taste of earthly Paradise.

One of the most powerful passages in literature describing birdsong (and
Lisa's post above reminds me of it) can be found in John Fowles's 'The
French Lieutenant's Woman', in which the protagonist finds himself in the
forest at dawn in the south of England. Too long to reproduce here, but a
simply *amazing* piece of writing. It takes place at the beginning of
Chapter 29, and the remarkable thing about it is that what Fowles describes
is very familiar to each one of us who has stood listening to a chorus of
birdsong. Each one of us will know exactly what he's talking about. As
Fowles writes on an earlier page, "We all write poems; it is simply that
poets are the ones who write in words." (jeez, now Tweeters is turning into
Literary Criticism 101--when's this gonna get back to *birds*?) Right now,
buckwheat.

Like Lisa, though with far less to show for it, I hit a ravine not too far
from the office yesterday after work thinking there might be some migrants
and territorially proclaiming birds. Damn all beside a few mangy starlings
in fine mimicking voice (hey, I'll pump up the species list any way I can
;-). It might be different in the mornings. If it ever stops raining in the
AM I'll head off to work an hour early and try to see what's there. Just as
touched as Lisa when I hear them, thinking of their long night voyages
(lighted by that *amazing* comet!), their brief touching here before
becoming lost in the North's vast forests and mountain valleys (earthbound,
I can't go with you though part of me yearns, romantic etc), the great sea
of them that floods and ebbs over us each year, day and night. It's too
much, sometimes.

Each morning as I get ready for work, I listen to CBC (Mozart & Bach,
Celtic, Vaughan Williams & Copland, if lucky; sludgy orchestral Brahms and
brittle Prokofiev if the show's producer's in a bad mood--yeah, I know it's
a matter of taste, but this is just-getting-up time and you'd think the
producers would have some damn decency before a guy's had a chance to get
his first cup of joe), and a Varied Thrush skirling tentatively in the front
yard for the last week or so (they've been all over the neighborhood for the
last three weeks). I think of the Varied as a really finicky
impossible-to-buy-for bird. It picks a note up, hums it, says 'Ain't quite
it', puts it back on the shelf, hops around for a minute or two thinking,
then picks up another note next to it and tries it on for melodic size.
Nope, not that one either. It'll dither all morning. Hard to please.
Dissatisfied shopper. The Miles Davis of thrushes.

Then the Fox Sparrow that's been here a week decides to show the thrush how
it's done but runs smack into the same problem of indecision, lack of
rehearsal and picky-picky, so there's these choppy carollings heading into
abrupt melodic dead-ends and non-sequiturs, sweet blocky phrases that
collide with gutteral trills and gargles, brilliant little runs that end in
chaotic nonsense. Each try expires in confusion and clutter.

Of course, their hormones are just not seething quite hot enough yet, and
these boys aren't yet back on their territories, so the songs are bound to
be partial and tentative. The Fox Sparrow on territory sings from cover and,
if you're unfamiliar with connecting the plain bird with the gorgeous song,
has you looking for some kind of magnificently-hued grosbeak. The Varied
Thrush will offer the deep forest version of the will-o'-the-wisp, or the
desert mirage of water: no matter how far you pursue the sound, the bird
singing it is always still just a little further off. Rather than
'ethereal', the pack-mule word for describing thrush song, to me it sounds
at a distance more industrial, more like someone shaving some soft metal on
a swiftly-turning lathe. If it were deep in the woods in Ireland, I'd wonder
if it weren't the Little People milling their gold. ;-)

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada When I found out that seven of my years
(604) 668-5073 vx was only one of theirs,
(604) 668-5028 fx I started biting absolutely everything.
mprice at mindlink.net
michael.price at istar.ca -Max Carlson (Ron Carlson's dog)