“We’re gonna be talking about the BOOBY! We’ll be talking about the WOODCOCK! Do you think that’s FUNNY, Butthead? Do you find it AMUSING that we’ll be talking about the SWALLOW? Yes, we’re also gonna be talking about the DICKCISSEL, the BUSHTIT, the COCK-OF-THE-ROCK, the SHAG… and we will DEFINITELY be spending a LOT of time talking about…GREAT TITS!!”
It’s been said that there are two deaths that any creature will face: the first, of their physical body, and the second, of their memory, when there is no one left who knew them.
When it comes to extinction, there are sometimes traces that remain. Most people have heard the name “passenger pigeon”, even if they may not be sure of its true definition. It makes sense that a bird that once outnumbered nearly every other animal on earth would leave an impact. There are other extinct birds of America, however, that seem to have simply disappeared from our collective memory—such as the Carolina Parakeet, a bird whose ubiquity and uniqueness should have guarded its memory for far longer than the 84 years that have passed since its extinction was officially declared.
The Carolina Parakeet was the only American parrot, an abundant bird that early explorers spotted as far north as New York, and west to the Great Plains. Few people I’ve spoken to have had any idea these birds ever existed. With this series, I wanted to use each painting to examine a different aspect of what made these birds special, and worth remembering.
One of my favorites stories about the Carolina Parakeet comes from a German immigrant in the 1800s, who looked at the birds’ bright faces, glowing like candles as they flocked together on the bare branches of a sycamore, and was reminded of the Christmas trees of his homeland.
My painting was completed in gouache on 24x18 inch watercolor paper, and its title is ‘American Tannenbaum’.
Kestrel-dad not sure how to dad but he’s trying his best.
Dad loves you and feeds you. But he is also dumb and feeds you a wonderfully done wagyu steak. You are 3 days old.
Okay, but check out this video from mid-May 2022 of a Kestrel Dad who just kept piling up voles and mice beside his babies when the mom was injured/killed/mia’d by owls…but then watched one of his babies just swallow a lizard and went “OH. I can feed them small food!” and learned to tear it apart!
EDIT: There’s a not-zero percent chance that this could be the same dad???????? The source is the same–Robert E Fuller–but they could be different birds.
UPDATE: Not only has Mister Kes learned to feed his chicks all on his own…
….the three chicks who were taken out of the nest for intensive care after the mom disappeared were put back in, and he just started feeding them, too.
He’s a single father of six who does not possess the instincts to feed even one of his offspring, but he learned and adopted that behavior without difficulty and is now hunting and providing for six kids all on his own.
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i am called kaivyrin, they/them, probably dying. mix of whatever's in my head at the moment.
