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Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

Hummingbird Visitors

Posted in Birds, Journeys, tagged , on April 25, 2022| 2 Comments »

Broad-Billed Hummingbird — Wikimedia Photo

I have seen eight different hummingbird species from my third-floor Catalina Foothills apartment balconies since moving to Tucson in 2013. One of these was a Lucifer’s hummingbird that sat in a nearby tree but didn’t visit my nectar feeder. It was a lifer, a first-time sighting that hasn’t happened again.

My field guide says this hummer only comes as far north as the tips of southern Arizona and Texas and is only rarely seen. I did a double take when I saw it, and triple-checked my bird guide before I accepted what I was looking at. The bird, a male, had a distinctive purple patch on its neck and a long, decurved bill. So, I finally decided it couldn’t be anything but a Lucifer.

I was thrilled, as it’s rare for me to see a new species now that my lifer list has grown to over 700 species.

In contrast, I almost daily see Anna’s hummingbirds, the male of which has a head that shimmers a brilliant magenta. I have one Anna’s that sits on a branch in the tree next to my front balcony — and attacks any other hummers that come in range. It’s quite a show to watch when he’s in residence.

But since he can’t be on guard broad every minute, I also see quite a few broadtail hummingbirds with their rose-red throats and wings that produce a trilling whir when they are flapping. The Anna’s makes a sharp clicking sound instead, which makes the two species easy to tell apart when they’re zipping around. This is especially true if the birds are the less distinctive females.

The broadbills, meanwhile, don’t seem to be as intimidated by the Anna’s as some of the other species that hover around my nectar feeder, which is probably why they are the second most common hummingbird to visit.

The next two most common visitors are the black-chinned, a smaller bird with a dark head and a sometimes-visible purple throat, and a broad-billed, a darker colored bird and the only visitor with an orange bill.

It’s taken hours of study for me to now identify my hummingbird visitors, and I still keep my bird guide close by. But being able to identify the birds I see is a major part of the enjoyment I get from birdwatching. It’s kind of like the thrill I get from reading a mystery book and correctly guessing who the killer is before the author reveals it.

I considered the time well-spent.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited) and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Feminists in the Avian World

Posted in African Safari, Birds, Journeys, tagged , , , on April 11, 2022| 3 Comments »

An emu dad is a candidate for father of the year. He takes care of chicks, even if they are not his own, for up to 18 months.

  In 1999, at a time in my life when I was slowing down, I took up birdwatching. It’s still been about the only thing I’ve ever done that absolutely requires patience, something I always thought couch-potatoes used as an excuse to Be lazy.

 In the beginning, I spent hours and hours on the Antelope Island Causeway in Great Salt Lake learning to identify ducks. The island was also the first place I saw a bird through a telescope. It was a western meadowlark, and the golden color of the bird’s throat took my breath away.

 As I learned more and more about these winged creatures, I became partial to the ones that seemed to be feminists, outshining or out-sexing the normally more colorful males.

First there was the belted kingfisher. I was delighted to learn that the female was the more colorful of the two genders. It sports a reddish belly band on its blue and white feathers which the male lacks.

 Then came the Galapagos hawk, which I saw in the Galapagos. The female, after she lays her eggs, leaves all the nest sitting and chick-tending to her male partner, while she goes off and finds another male to mate with.

 This somewhat made up for most birds, like sage grouse males whose only contribution to their female partners is to impregnate them, which takes no more time than two blinks of an eye.

The males gather in what is called a lek, and drum by expanding their chests to attract the females, who to my feminist delight were very picky and often walked away. I got to watch this action, after hiking before dawn to a blind on Desert Ranch in Utah.

Another avian feminist is the African jacana, a bird I saw during a 2007 safari to Kenya and Tanzania.  It’s a wading bird species in which the female also leaves all the chick rearing to the male while she finds another partner.

 Then there’s the giant emu. After producing an egg, the brooding, and then the care and feeding of the hatchlings is all the male’s responsibility, even if all the eggs aren’t his own. He has even learned how to carry a chick beneath his wings.

 You go girls?

 Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Enjoy Today: It’s a Gift

Posted in aging, Birds, Dogs, tagged , on April 6, 2022| 1 Comment »

Some of the best trails end at waterfalls, like this one in Idaho. – Photo by Pat Bean

“Yesterday’s the past, tomorrow’s the future, but today’s a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” These words from Bil Keane, a cartoonist best known for his The Family Circus strip, had special meaning for me this morning when I reread words from a decade-old journal.

  At this time, I was still exploring this country, mostly on backroads, in the small RV in which I lived and traveled for nine years.

On November 10, 2010, I listed 100 things I was thankful for. On seeing this list again, I saw that some of those things, when I was 71, were not applicable to the 83-year-old I will be in just a few days.

 On the upside, I’m still thankful for belly laughs, good cream-laced coffee, being a writer, my zest for life and hot baths – and thankful for my family, which has grown by four great-grandchildren the past 12 years.

 But I still miss my canine companion Maggie, a mischievous cocker spaniel who spent eight years on the road with me, and my nature hikes, which have been curtailed by a bad back.

   While Maggie has been replaced by a spoiled Siberian husky/shih tzu-mix canine companion, whose name of Scamp perfectly fits him, my trail days have been replaced with short walks around my apartment complex with the Scamp. Some days I can comfortably walk an eighth of a mile, and on other days much less.

  While there are many blessings that have come with my years, including the gift of time to ponder as well as write, actually liking myself, and learning to slow down and really see Mother Nature’s wonders, I mourn my lost hiking ability.

 Thankfully, I seldom let an opportunity to go on a hike pass me by when I was younger. And thankfully I can still drive back roads and park in scenic spots where I can bird watch at a trailhead. In my younger days, one of my older birding colleagues did just that – and often saw more birds than those of us who took the trail.  

But take it from this old broad. If there is something you love to do, make sure you do it while you can. It makes it easier to continue being thankful for what you still have, and more able to see what you gain from the passing years.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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List-Maker – That’s Me

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Books, Favorite Places, Journeys, Lonely Planet Pathfinder, Writing on March 24, 2022| 5 Comments »

The Meadowlark and the Chukar: I wrote a bird column for three years back in the early 2000s, and a chukar I saw on Antelope Island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake was the first bird I wrote about. — Art by Pat Bean

 My mornings start with my to-do list, which is a carry over from the day before, and the day before that, and the days before those. Eventually a dreaded chore finally gets done because I’m tired of looking at it.

The daily list actually is two lists in one. The tasks I need to do, or simply want to do (like watch a bird cam located in Panama), and the list of the books I’m reading, or want to read.

As an old broad, my body appreciates many breaks during the day, and the reading list gives me something to fall back on besides computer games – which according to my self-imposed rule must not be played before 4 p.m. This rule, because I love playing games is often broken. So as a reminder I have a note taped to my refrigerator that says “You could be reading.”

 Besides the daily list, I keep lists of books I’ve read, places I’ve been, the proverbial bucket list, menu lists and an idea list, from which I always can find a topic to write about.

But one of my favorite lists is the one I begin on April 1, 1999 – the day I joined the world of avid (translate crazy) bird watchers.

 I keep a list of every bird I’ve seen, noting the place and the date. But thankfully, I’m not like the birder who once passed me on a favorite birding trail. I was dawdling along, watching red-winged blackbirds flash their scarlet marked wings while listening to a couple of breeding male meadowlarks trying to out sing each other.

Barely slowing his pace, a middle-aged hiker came upon me and asked if I had seen a chukar. I replied that I often saw this partridge-like bird in the rocks near a bend up ahead. About 10 minutes later, the man ran past me going the other way. 

  “Got it … that’s 713 birds for me now.” His voice was like the rumble of a passing freight train.

How sad, I thought, that he didn’t take a minute to admire the flashy scarlet markings on the blackbirds or to enjoy the melodic voices of the two meadowlarks.

 Numbers and names on a list are only that. It’s being present in the moment – seeing the golden yellow on a meadowlark’s throat as it tilts its head toward the sky in song, or the magic of a sunrise slowly coloring the sides of a canyon – that make my heart beat faster. And I’m thankful I enjoy such wonders whether I’m seeing them for the first or the hundredth time.

 Seeing birds is always delightful – but then so is getting my oven cleaned after seeing the chore on my to-do list for three weeks running.

  I’m glad I’m a list-maker.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining. 

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Politically Speaking

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, journalism, Journeys on March 9, 2022| 2 Comments »

Sketching and watching birds, like this Gila Woodpecker, is one way I get my mind off the chaos of daily news headlines.

Agreement is Rare

Political speaking, when it comes to certain things, especially politics, my family pretty much has America covered – and for peace’s sake we usually keep our views to ourselves.

 With a great margin for error, this is how I see things among my five children.

I have one child to the left of me, one child to the right of me, one child that knows without a doubt that their side, whatever it is, is always the right side, one child who gets quite passionate about their particular side, and one child who appears not to follow the political arena at all.

That last may be the lucky one. I tried not reading a newspaper for the first four months after I retired from being a newspaper journalist. It was a relaxing, but not a satisfying time, in my life. I came to the conclusion that sticking my head in the sand and ignoring what’s going on in the world is not for me.

These days, reading the NY Times, and then the varied and even conflicting news on my computer’s home page while I drink cream-laced coffee in the morning, gives me plenty to think about — and fume about — for the rest of the day.

 My children grew up in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s’, and we often talked about world events. We seldom agreed back then on anything either.

I actually take pride in that. It means I raised independent children who mostly took an interest in the world they lived in and learned to think for themselves.

 With my own family as a role model, I know it’s possible to get along without chaos, ugliness or war — even if there’s no way in hell, we’re ever likely to agree with one another.

I suspect it works because we all care about and love each other – and have the sense, at least most of the time, to keep our political opinions to ourselves. 

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited) and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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The Clock on my Kitchen Wall

Posted in Birds, Journeys on March 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Tic-Yock-Tick-Tock

About eight years ago, my then 13-year-old grandson Tony, gave me a kooky clock, one with a brightly-colored bird representing each hour. On the hour, the clock chimed with a representation of that bird’s voice.

In order from 1 o’clock, the birds were Mallard (quack-quack), Mourning Dove (coo-coo), Ring-Necked Pheasant (kok-cack), American Woodcock (chirp-chirp), Northern Bobwhite (bob-white, bob-white), Canada Goose (honk-a-lonk), California Quail (chi-ca-go), Ruffed Grouse (cluck-cluck), Wood Duck (oo-eek, oo-eek), Wilson’s Snipe (wheet-wheet), Green-Winged Teal (krick-krack), and Wild Turkey (gobble, gobble).

At first, all was well. Each bird sounded out on its hour – or so I thought, Then I realized that while a bird sounded on each hour, it was never the right bird according to the pictures on the clock.

After a while of this, the bird sounds began to resemble no bird sounds I had ever heard. It was a cacophony of rumble, grumbles and even low roars – well except for the voice of the Bob White, which while not on the right hour always comes out a clear bob-white, bob-white.

When I have visitors and the clock grackles and roars, the guest always jump and ask “What was that?”

My granddaughter Shanna and her wife Dawn, who are frequent visitors and always trying to look out for me, finally said they were going to buy me a new clock.

“No!” I firmly told them. “I have a one-of-a-kind-of-a-clock that fits my eclectic apartment and lifestyle. It fits me – and it keeps perfect time. It’s not broken, it’s just odd – and odd is OK!”

I love my clock.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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The Non-Bucket List

Posted in aging, Birds, Dogs, journalism, Journeys, tagged on February 21, 2022| Leave a Comment »

Blue-footed boobies like to show off their brightly colored feet. And they do so in a Hokey-Pokey kind of way. I got to dance with one. — Wikimedia photo

If I listed all the things I still want to do in life, I would have to reach the ripe old age of 699 – at least. Besides, I’m not sure I would want to do that. My wrinkles already have wrinkles, and knowing that I only have limited time left on this planet energizes me.

I’m thankful that I’ve crossed off quite a few priority items on my bucket list, like taking an African Safari, rafting the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, sky diving, getting a tattoo, exploring this country in an RV with only a canine companion and meeting Maya Angelou.

Well, actually meeting Maya was never on my Bucket List. It just happened because I was at the right place at the right time – a reporter in a city Maya visited.

The truth is many of the best things in my life have not been on any bucket list. I treasure the time I danced with a blue-footed booby in the Galapagos. I was hiking with an Audubon group and was alone in the lead when I came across the dancing booby. I knew I was invited to join him by the look in his eyes.

Now how do you put something like that on a bucket list?

Realistically, I know I’m not going to see or do most of the remaining things on my bucket list – like revisiting the calm serenity of Lake Moraine in Canada.

Instead of whining about it, or perhaps after whining about it I should say, I’ve started a non-bucket list of simple joys, like sitting with a friend on my third-floor balcony and watching Tucson’s spectacular sunset.

If I look hard enough, I can find something that would never make a bucket list quite often.

I’ve always wanted a canine companion, but how could I know that I would get the one dog I needed to bring balance to my life.

The whimsies of nature are also surprising and delightful. One of my best moments was watching an osprey catch a fish only to have it snatched by a bald eagle. Now who would have thought to put that on a bucket list?

Yup. I think I’m retiring the bucket list for the non-bucket list, which is more doable for old broads like me.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Murder of Crows – and a Tennis Game

Posted in aging, Birds on February 18, 2022| 1 Comment »

Watercolor by Pat Bean

There’s a special, sometimes peculiar, name for birds when they flock together. For example, widgeons become a knot, pheasants a bouquet, raptors a cauldron, finches a charm, geese a gaggle and storks a mustering.

My favorite, for a personal reason, is murder of crows.

A half dozen women, some journalists and mothers like myself, and all of us not what you would call young chicks, became good friends shortly after I moved to Ogden in 1979. We started getting together once a week for lunch, where we were loud with our laughter and bountiful with our irreverence.  

One of the women’s children, a 17-year-old boy, in jest, called us just a bunch of old crows. We liked it, and so named ourselves The Murder of Crows.

As an addendum to the story was that the boy’s mother and I were both tennis players, and probably stymied that we didn’t take offense at being called crows, the boy challenged his mother and me to a tennis game with him and one of his classmates.

We accepted – and Margaret and I beat the 17-year-old boys soundly. It wasn’t that we were that good, but that she and I had the benefit of wisdom that comes with age. We would dink the ball just over the net, a move the boys hadn’t expected and one they couldn’t seem to overcome. Also, the boys’ powerful serves often went out of bounds while our serves almost always were in bounds. All we had to do then was return the serve just barely over the net.

I still smile thinking about that game.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Make Way for the Ducklings

Posted in aging, Birds, Books, Journeys, Travel, tagged , , on February 4, 2022| 3 Comments »

Ducklings Dressed for the Winter

Winter Fun

It’s cold this morning in Tucson, and colder elsewhere say the weather men. But Boston’s ducklings have been dressed for it, as you can see in the above photo, which I came across while reading my email.

I spent a couple of days at the ducklings’ home on the Boston Commons back in 2006 during my RVing days. I parked my RV in a small town an hour’s drive from the city, and took the commuter train into town for a week of sight-seeing of historical sites like The Old North Church and Paul Revere’s home. I wrote about all this in Travels with Maggie. 

I found everything quite educational and interesting, but nothing charmed me as much as the bronze Mallard Family statues, created in honor of the 1941 classic children’s book, Make Way for Ducklings.

Designed by Nancy Schön in honor of the book’s author, Robert McCloskey, the ducklings were installed in the gardens in 1987. The book tells the story of how Mr. and Mrs. Mallard came to Boston looking for a home, and eventually settled in the gardens.

 Daddy Mallard, however, is missing, for the statues only consist of Mother Mallard and her eight babies: Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack.

The family is often dressed for holidays and the weather, but they were only in their birthday suits when I visited Boston. Because I was so charmed, I guess I’m still a child at heart – and thankful for it.

The ducklings were being enjoyed by kids like me when I visited them. — Photo by Pat Bean,

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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The Joy of Wonder

Posted in aging, Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged on February 2, 2022| 2 Comments »

Who wouldn’t be full of wonder at seeing a Cooper’s Hawk sitting calmly in a tree? – Photo by Pat Bean  

Little Things Mean a Lot

“It doesn’t have to be the Grand Canyon, it could be a city street, it could be the face of another human being – Everything is full of wonder,” wrote A. C. Grayling, a former British university professor and author of over 25 books on philosophy.

I agree. And I also believe my continuing ability to retain a sense of wonder and enjoyment, whether it be about the passing landscape during a country drive or working a jigsaw puzzle with a granddaughter, is one of the greatest blessings I enjoy during this eighth decade of life. I still wake up looking forward to a day in which I might learn something new.

It was easy for me to keep this sense of wonder when I was a newspaper journalist because everyday was different, and I was usually involved in newsworthy stories, from interviewing people like Maya Angelou – my favorite interview of a 37-year career – to learning about cold fusion, a topic that kept me up researching most of the night before the next day’s interview.

Thankfully, however, I have managed to maintain my wonder — even as my days have become less active and more confined.

Yesterday, I was awed by a story in the New York Times about an eight-year-old Idaho boy who wrote and illustrated an 81-page book, the Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis, and then stuck it into his local library’s fiction section.

When the librarians learned about it, they were charmed and entered it into the catalog system in the graphic novel category because of its many illustrations. By the end of January, 56 people wanted to check it out.

The book had lots of spelling errors, for example, in “Chaptr 1,” Dillon writes, “ONe Day in wintr it wus Crismis!”  But the tale is a good one, the librarians said, and goes on to transport Dillon, both the protagonist and the author, on a time-traveling adventure after the star on the tree explodes.

Spelling, I long ago came to realize, is not as important as being able to tell a good story. A good editor or, these days spell check, can correct the mistakes.

Wondering, meanwhile, is how I have come to look at life. For example, wondering if our resident great horned owl recently increased its nightly hooting because it’s looking for a new mate. In recent years, I’ve always heard one hooting owl getting a hoot back from a second owl. Currently I’m hearing only one bird’s voice.

Wondering, at least for me, is often as satisfying as finding an answer.

But not always. I wonder how come there seems to be so much hate in the world these days, and no answer to this question would make me feel better or satisfied.  

Thankfully stories like Dillon Helbig’s Crismis lets me forget about that for a while. And to remember there are still good news stories out there to read and wonder about.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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