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Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

I Don’t Wanna!

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , on November 8, 2024| 5 Comments »

I’d rather be birdwatching!

Aging My Way

“It’s good that at 85 you can still do the techie stuff,” my granddaughter Shanna complimented me the other day when I was telling her that my Roomba was misbehaving and that I had been texted a link to a YouTube video that would show me how to fix it.

I was tempted to say “But I don’t wanna? Have I mentioned how much I hate doing techie stuff. Still, I was pleased that my granddaughter thought me so capable – but even more appreciative when her wife Dawn fixed the Roomba.

I love technology, but all I want to know is which button do I push,

I was blessed with that before I retired, as there was always someone around to fix my technical problems. Since I’ve never been afraid to push a button, I sometimes even created those problems myself. That’s probably why when I went to find an IT specialist and they saw me approaching, they usually exclaimed: “Ohhh. Here comes trouble.”

But not having those helpful specialists around these days makes me want to go back to work – well, almost.

Meanwhile, my loved ones and friends mostly take care of my technical problems. Of course they’re not always available. What happens then is that I spend four hours figuring things out for myself instead of a techie taking 10 minutes to do the same thing.

The silver lining, however, is that when I finally fix whatever techie thing went wrong, I do feel pretty proud of myself –and I like that feeling.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon and is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Miyajima Birding Memories

Posted in aging, Birds, Journeys, Travel, Writing, tagged , , on October 28, 2024| 1 Comment »

Tori Gate entrance to Miyajima

Aging My Way

Daily photo memories began dropping into my email about a year ago. They almost always bring a smile to my face along with good memories – from seeing how my great-grandchildren are growing up to recalling some of my travel adventures.

One of the more recent photos to show up was one I had taken of the giant tori gate that welcomes visitors to a small island an hour away from the city of Hiroshima. On seeing it, I was immediately transmitted back in time to the three days I spent there with a son who spoke perfect Japanese and a granddaughter taking a break from her college studies.

My granddaughter Heidi and I had spent Christmas in Guam, where my youngest daughter was then living. We had stopped in Japan on the way home where we were met by my son Mike, who had lived in Japan for a couple of years.  

The three of us, often hand in hand, had walked all over the island, enjoying its quaint nature trails, museums and shrines. It was January of 2005, just shortly after I had retired, and just shortly after I had become an avid bird watcher.

When our landlady at the charming little bed and breakfast where we were staying learned that I was interested in birds, she gave me a small field guide written by a local birder. As a result, I was then able to identify and add a dozen new bird species to my life list. The birds were mostly colorful and ones that can’t be found anywhere in North America.

I revisited the Miyajima birds with a little research this morning and found them just as delightful to see a second time. According to my record-keeping, the birds I saw included the Brown-Eared Bulbul, Yellow Bunting, Jungle Crow, Common Gull, Grey Heron, Black Kite, Rock Pipit (not sure which subspecies because I didn’t note it at the time), Daurian Redstart, Eastern Turtle Dove (also known as Oriental Turtle Dove), Japanese Pied Wagtail, and Varied, Coal, and Long-Tailed tits.

I remember my granddaughter joking about how casually I used the word tit.

My memories are like the crazy quilt that my grandmother made, and which I slept under as a child. They are all over the place, and I treasure them – well, most of them that is. As an 85-year-old broad who doesn’t travel too far from home these days, it’s heartfelt to have such good memories.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on

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Lollygagging My Days Away

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Nature, Writing, tagged , on October 6, 2024| 1 Comment »

Cumbres Pass in Colorado, a fall scene I stumbled into after taking a wrong turn during my RV-ing years. Thankfully, the sight is still embedded in my memories. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

It amazes me how, in my eighth decade, I can finally sit so quietly, simply enjoying the sights around me and communing with my brain’s thoughts and memories. I’m finally able to let go of the intense need I’ve long had to constantly be doing, doing, and doing.

In my earlier years, the doing was a way to cope with a too young, too wrong marriage. The doing then became a necessity as I had five young children underfoot, and then a need to support the family financially.

When that was accomplished, the doing turned into a desire to celebrate a late, second adolescence because I had missed that first season of my life. At the same time, I was also deeply involved with an exciting job I loved, and which, because it was as a journalist and I was involved in reporting the world around me, was on my mind almost 24 hours a day.

When I retired in 2004, doing, doing and doing had become an ingrained habit. If I wasn’t constantly involved in some activity, I felt substantially reduced as a person. As a result, I planned my life so I was either always on the go or had an ongoing project, like traveling the country in an RV, writing a book, or seeing as many bird species as I could.  

I treasure those years of doing as I spent nine wonderful years living on the road during which I saw an abundance of this amazing country. And I did, finally, write that book. As for the bird watching, I’m still doing that, and I’m still writing – just at a much slower pace, which has left me with plenty of time for lollygagging.

What astounds and amazes me is just how much I’m enjoying it.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Sweetwater and a Green Heron

Posted in aging, Birds, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 28, 2024| 2 Comments »

This is a Green Heron that I saw here in Tucson at Agua Caliente Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

Since my heart attack, and the installation of three stents in this old broad’s body, I’ve pretty much nested. It felt like a major triumph when two months out I could drive again, even if just to the doctor’s, pharmacy, grocery store and library.

Then on my first real outing, a party accompanied by “the girls” – my granddaughter and her wife – I took a fall. It was a little one, with me going down on my knee, rolling forward on my left side and just barely hitting my head. In my younger life, I would have just gotten up and been embarrassed if someone had seen me.

But I’m on blood thinners and my head and knee swelled up to gigantic proportions, so “the girls” rushed me to the emergency room for a CT scan. I was fine and the swelling soon went down. However, I was black and blue on my left side from my knees to my head for several weeks.

After that, I was reluctant to leave my comfortable abode except for necessities. It kind of felt like I had agoraphobia. I decided I didn’t like it – and in response recently set a goal of doing one outside activity a week. Last week, it was a pool party at the same friend’s house, but because I was accompanied by “the girls,” it kind of felt like I was cheating.

This morning, however, I got up early and went on an accessible bird watching outing all by myself. The event took place at Sweetwater Wetlands, one of Tucson’s birding gems. Before my heart attack, I had hiked the trail around the small lake often but hadn’t been back in recent months.

While most of the lake had been drained in anticipation of the upcoming annual burn to control invasive plant species and mosquitos, there were still birds around. These are the ones I saw as I walked along the accessible path with my rollator – or simply sat in it and watched: Say’s Phoebee, Gila Woodpecker, Green Heron, Least Flycatcher, Western Kingbird, Cooper’s Hawk, Vermillion Flycatcher, Gambel’s Quail, Kestrel, Black-Crowned Night Heron, Mourning Dove, Abert’s Towhee, and lots of Mallards of varying ages.

The Cooper’s gave us a nice fly-about view, but the Green Heron, which flew in and settled among the Mallards was my favorite sight of the morning. These birds have been a favorite since I saw one sitting on a branch barely above the water watching the scene below intently. Its watch paid off as a small fish swam beneath the branch and quickly became lunch for the heron.

Watching birds is still about the only thing I have patience for. Now, as I sit here in front of my computer in my cozy air-conditioned apartment, I’m thinking about what I will do for an outing next week. Stay tuned.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Birding Africa

Posted in African Safari, aging, Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , , on September 9, 2024| 1 Comment »

Joseph (center) stands with Kim (far right) and me (between the two) and another couple as we wait for a plane to pick us on a small grass runway serving Little Governor’s Camp in Kenya in 2007.

Aging my Way

As I continue to read Arjan Dwarshuis’ book, The (Big) Year That Flew By, I come across places where he is birding that are places I’ve also birded, notably Tanzania and Kenya, where I spent two weeks in 2007 birding their national parks.    In Tanzania, we had an awesome native guide named Bilal who was really into the big cats, as was my travel companion Kim. I feel sure, especially since Kim has told me, that I was a nuisance at times because I kept hollering stop every time I saw a bird.

But in Kenya, one of our native safari guides was Joseph, who seemed to be in as much of an awe of birds as I was. I never even had to tell him to stop because he did so whenever a bird came in sight. I remember one instance where he chased down a pelican so we could get close enough to identify its exact species.

It turned out to be a pink-backed pelican, which was a life bird for me. Joseph had been hoping it would have been a great white pelican, which would have been a life bird for him.

I mention my awesome African adventure because in Kenya, one of Arjan’s native guides was named Joseph. I can’t help but wonder if he might have been the same Joseph I birded with. While it’s a big wide world out there, when you narrow it down to avid bird enthusiasts, you’ve made it a whole lot smaller.

So, what do you think?  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Morning Bird Sounds

Posted in African Safari, aging, Birds, Journeys, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged , , on September 2, 2024| Leave a Comment »

While it was far from Arjan’s record-breaking number, I did see 182 bird species during my two-week safari in Kenya and Tanzania, including this Hamerkop sharing a water hole with zebra. The fantastic trip with my best friend, Kim, was also balm to my wanderlust soul. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“Just before sunrise, I am woken up by the deep, foghorn-like song of an Emu. What a great sound to wake up to,” writes Arjan Dwarshuis in The Big (Year) That Flew By. The book is about his quest to break the record for seeing the most bird species in a single year. He did, in 2016, counting 6,852 species. And the record still stands.

It was a journey across six continents through 40 continents. I chose to read the account of his incredible adventure because at heart I have wanderlust in my soul. I’ve also been an avid birder since 1999, the year I turned 60 and realized I needed a hobby that wasn’t quite as strenuous as white-water rafting or tennis.

Suddenly, where I had seldom seen birds, I couldn’t not see birds, which I found fascinating.

But one of my first discoveries as a birder was that it wasn’t always something done sedately. Some bird species can only be found at the tops of high mountains and some only in places where no roads exist. Thankfully I saw a few of those before my hardy adventuring days were over.

These days, I mostly bird in my own small, patio yard or on a gentle path, not necessarily paved, that can accommodate my rollator — a four-wheeled contraption that I can hold onto for balance and which also has a seat — I note this for those unfamiliar with such things.

 Some days I simply sit in it and listen to all the bird songs around me while an app called Merlin identifies the birds by sound for me. Knowing what birds are around often helps me find them with my eyes.

I also often awake to the coos of Mourning Doves, the screeches of a pair of Gila Woodpeckers that like to steal the nectar from my hummingbird feeders, and the chirp, chirp, chirping of House Sparrows – birds that visit my yard daily.

 While not as exotic as waking up to the foghorn-ish song of an Emu, listening to the sound of any bird is still a great way to wake up to. And reading about Arjan’s wondrous adventures chasing birds invigorates my wanderlust soul anytime of the day.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Instruction Manuals: Read Any Good Ones?

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, tagged on August 21, 2024| 1 Comment »

Read any good instruction manuals lately? Art by Pat Bean.

Aging My Way

OK. I admit it. I’ve always been a person who turns to an instruction manual only when everything else fails. I’m always sure I can figure out whatever contraption needs to be figured out without any help.

ometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t, which is probably a good thing because it keeps my ego in check

But the world is changing too fast, and my stubbornness and impatience isn’t helping me stay caught up with its rapidly changing technology.  I still, after years, don’t know how to use all the potential possibilities of my phone, and my new Fitbit has me even more befuddled.

What I would really like are good instruction manuals. Ones I can hold in my hands, and slowly peruse. Ones that explain things in logical order, instead of making me go from page two to page seven for complete instructions.

Finding such a manual these days, however, isn’t easy, particularly for technical gadgets like computers, phones or Fitbits. You have to go online, and you have to know the exact model of your gadget, and hopefully you have the latest update of it, to find instructions you may, or may not understand.

As for how-to videos, they usually leave me more confused than before, probably because they expect me to already have more tech knowledge than I do. Such videos put me back in the 1980s, when I bought my first computer and quickly discovered my six-year-old granddaughter knew more about how to operate it than I did.

Thank goodness I have another granddaughter living nearly. And she has a tech-savvy wife, too. Between the two of them, they keep my gadgets up and running. And they don’t bother me with all that tech gibberish of how such gadgets work because they’ve come to understand that my only real interest is which button to push to make it do what I want it to do.

So, who needs instruction manuals anyway? But it would be nice.                

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, wand these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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In My Own Backyard

Posted in aging, Birds, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged , on August 11, 2024| 1 Comment »

Male Hooded Oriole

“Nature is never boring. If you pay attention, you will always see, hear, smell or feel something surprising, whether you are walking around in a tropical rainforest or in your own backyard.” – Arjan Dwarshuis, from his book, The (Big) Year That Flew By.

Aging My Way

As I’m reading Arjan’s book – which takes readers on a year-long journey around the world in which the author saw a record-breaking 6,852 birds in a single year — I’m watching the rain pour over the gutters outside my patio door. It’s monsoon season in Tucson and it’s been a wet and windy one.

I treasure Arjan’s words because the only place I’ve been bird and nature watching recently has been my own small patio yard. It’s a shady place with two oleander trees, a tall cottonwood, and a potted rubber tree plant that I’ve owned for over 30 years. Birds, enticed even more by seed and nectar feeders, love it.

The most recent and spectacular avian visitors have been a pair of hooded orioles, the male a bright gold and the female a bright yellow. They hang around, and feed from the nectar feeder.

Hey Arjan! I’m paying attention.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Foot-in-Mouth Problem

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , on August 7, 2024| 3 Comments »

I wonder what this little feller is trying to say. — Art by Pat Bean

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

Aging My Way

As a writer, one would think I would be a good communicator. After all, that’s the primary purpose of writing.  And, if I might be a bit immodest, after 60 years of doing it, I think I do it quite well.

But when it comes to the spoken word, I fail quite miserably. I’m always using the wrong word, the wrong tone, or simply the wrong connotation. And it often gets me in trouble.

My brain seems to work better with my fingers on a keyboard than they do with my vocal cords. Simply put, I have foot-in-mouth-disease. My newspaper reporter colleagues used to even joke: “It’s a good thing Pat Bean doesn’t write the way she talks.”

While they might have been talking about my Texas accent, I think it went farther than that. In my defense, I always spell people’s name correctly – well after the first time I was embarrassed in print by calling someone Mary, when she actually spelled her name Mari.

After that, asking someone to spell their name was always the first question out of my mouth. And it’s a good think I did, because I discovered there were several other variations of the simple name Mary, not to mention what parents did with other supposedly common names.

I was thinking about this after coming across a bit of trivia this morning that noted there were over 7,000 languages spoken around the world. How did this come about? It’s no wonder people in this world can’t get along. They can’t understand each other.

Meanwhile, after my latest spoken communication gaff that unintentionally left some hurt feelings, I’ve decided perhaps I should spend more time writing than talking.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for the Story Circle Network Journal, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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I’m Taking Einstein’s Advice

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing on July 10, 2024| 3 Comments »

          “Someone just honked to get me out of my parking space faster, so now I have to sit here until both of us are dead.” – Facebook post that had be belly laughing.

Aging My Way

OK. I give up. I’ve been trying to write a blog for over two weeks now. I get a good start on one, say about 200 words, which is about half the number of words in an average blog, and then I get stuck. What I’ve written goes into the trash, or sometimes in a file to be relooked at another day.

Well, if I’m to believe Albert Einstein, who says “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it,” I need to try a different approach.

So, at least for a little while, my blog is simply going to be a sharing of my art and a quote that is meaningful to me. I also want to restart my Bean Pat feature, which is a pat on the back to something I, personally, like.

And today’s BEAN PAT is for writers and goes to Dawn Downey’s One Damn Fine Sentence blog.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

 

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