A Morning Person's Observations #4

The New Sit Spot

The first morning in my new apartment, I sat on the steps on my patio thinking this would be my new sit spot.  Goodness am I excited about that patio, but it would not be a nice place to drink coffee each morning (apparently I'm a coffee drinker now).  There is nothing but wood and concrete, and I heard some birds, but didn't see a single one fly overhead on the day I sat on the terrace.  There are some empty pots for a garden underneath the staircase, so I figured if the landlady didn't mind I could create some greenery to watch each morning.

Then I went to throw out the trash and explored a little in the alley behind my building.  To the right there was the sign of a garden plot.  As I got closer I saw it was actually a ppatch!  There was a bench leaning against the wall, with the perfect spot to sit and watch the ppatch as someone sips on their morning tea, er, coffee.

Spring sunlight in the ppatch

There's a sign with a number to call if you want a patch.  I'm sure the waiting list is enormously long, but I got on the interest list anyway.  However, if I only spending a year in this apartment, never get a ppatch, but still sit and enjoy the setting every morning with my cup of coffee, that will be enough, that will be perfect.

It's Lent and I'm feeling lost.  Since the GED changed, everything at work feels like a different moving part, moving away from the rest of the puzzle instead of coming together.  I'm trying so hard to figure it out, to give the students concrete steps forward with their education, but everything I say sounds like a broken promise.  "No we don't have the practice tests yet," "No you don't have enough credits," "No your old scores aren't saved anywhere."  All of this is out of my control, but it's so frustrating and trying to navigate the pieces has burnt me out.


So, I'm giving up doing too much work and taking on sitting in the ppatch.  I'm giving up going out and taking on cooking long, slow dinners at home.  I'm giving up spending my evenings glued to the computer screen, and taking on long, slow baths, reading more books, seeing more friends, playing more games, and longer nights of sleep.

The ppatch has already given me hopeful signs of spring, I think one bush must be the Indian plum, because it was buds when I first started sitting in February, and now its blossoms are the size of my hand.  They look like hands opening to the sky during meditation.  The chickadees and robins make frequent appearances, talking to one another as they pass through and check me out a little.  Two pigeons, darker than most, spent a flirtatious morning cooing and following each other around the adjoining balconies and gutters.  This is what I love, having a moment in the secret world that is always here, that I tune out when I'm focused on my human schedule.

This morning the crows came and sat on what Ann (a smoker and coffee drinker in the ppatch I met today) says is a chestnut tree.  One held a large twig, the other stared me down for a second, as if to challenge my place in the patch.  I didn't back down and took a sip of coffee without batting an eye.  Then the sun broke through the clouds and lit up the row patches, and the crow accepted me and took off.

The highlight was a month ago, creeping slowly and quietly into the ppatch, trying hard not to spill my tea (back when I still could get through a whole day on tea, sigh).  I looked to the top of the Doug Fir that is on the other side of the fence, but hangs generously over the ppatch.  Often on the bare branch sits a crow or sometimes a robin.  Today there was a hawk!  It had been making an alarm call that I mistook for a squirrel.  After I sat on the bench it stayed a little longer, scouting the situation.  It gave up, possibly thinking I'd scared away any prey.  As justice, it soared away calling out again, scaring away any prey for me.

My hawk identification is horrible.  It was tiny for a hawk, and almost all white on the underbelly.  My initial google research suggests it was a Short-tailed Hawk by the looks, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature says that hawk is keen to stay tropical, so back to square one.  Hope it shows up again and gives me a better look.

A Morning Person's Observations #1

6/12/2012 - First naturalizing in Queen Anne

I heard them this morning, the chickadees!  I'm glad they live on this side of Lake Union too.

slug trail, look close!

As I sip my tea, I look between my feet and see a slug trail that went all over a plant by the back stoop, but the slug was nowhere to be seen.  I hope to find it one day.

There is a gentle coolness in the air, temperature is the low 60s.  It's dry, but feels fresh.  There are partial clouds in the sky.  Basically, Seattle before the Fourth of July.  If I was in D.C. I would swear it was fall and not summer.  My new sit spot is on the back step, below Raffaela's (upstairs roommate) porch, so it's shaded and tucked away in the forest of our backyard.

The chickadees make their namesake noise for me again.  I can hear them and many others, but I can't see any of them yet.  I'm the new kid on the block, and they're not sure if they're ok with me coming out to play.

6/13/2012 - Familiarizing with the neighbors

I was lucky enough to look between my feet, and see the slug this morning!  Somehow it is the ugliest and cutest slug I've ever seen, all at once.

Some of the birds emerged this morning, just for a moment.  I vainly assumed they had come to see me, that after two days I had become a consistent, reliable, and safe presence.  Then I heard Raffaela by the side stairs to her flat.  They had come over because they had been disrupted elsewhere.  Still, once they saw me they seemed curious.  They were probably a type of sparrow.  What one of my college professors, Jay Roberts, would call LBJs (Little Brown Jabbers).  Their brown feathers were a dark, rich brown.  The tail feathers were long and royal looking.

I notice some of the flora characters this morning.  A few Bracken ferns, a Maple tree, Big Leaf I believe.  A few other species I'll need to identify later.  And the familiar morning glory with its beautiful white flowers, crawling all over the horsetail fern with a King Midas touch, choking the life out of anything it comes across.

In the coming weeks, my roommates and I all leave for two weeks, and we return to find Raffaela's bike under the outside stairs, covered in Morning Glory!

6/14/2012 - Nesting Ninja

One of the LBJs made an appearance today, third day in a row and it seemed willing to tolerate me.  The bird looked like a wren to me.  Tiny body with a long, elegant tail sticking straight up.  A white headband cuts across the eyes, making me think of a ninja.

Ninja wren nest

Ninja wren picked up some fluff that looked like dandelion bits.  It shook them against the ground, dusting them with dirt.  I still find it funny the way birds move, such twitchy little creatures.  Ninja wren went to deposit its nest materials in a hole between the house and Raffaela's porch.

I notice today that one of the ferns is bracken, but the other one looks more like Spiney Wood Fern.

6/20/2012 - Naturalizing at Green Lake

I've been staying at Chris' all week, dog-sitting Denali while Chris and everyone are in the backcountry for staff training.  We sat on the front steps this morning, Denali in front of me, just in case the couple across the street walking their toddler tried to attack me (he has some neurotic wolf guarding tendencies).

I've heard naturalists say don't try to do a sit spot with a dog.  This advice makes sense, but I do also like the different dynamics you observe sitting outside with a dog.  The flies were swarming because of a present Denali had dropped in the front yard yesterday that I hadn't cleaned up yet.  The bees also swung by, particularly interested in the purple flowers Ally (Chris' roommate) had planted.  They had giant pouches of pollen hanging off of either side of their abdomen!

E.J. found a dead honeybee once, with a honey bubble still attached to its leg.  She put it in a tiny, clear box, in her car, and I could stare at that bee for hours and the bubble that still hasn't popped.

I try to make my morning sits only about observing, leave the stresses of the world for later, but I can't help but think about all the bees that are dying, and wonder what a world without honey, or pollinated flowers, would be like.

A robin perches on a telephone wire and sends out a call twice.  The robin's ears must be better than mine, because after the second call, the robin flies over George's (the landlord who lives next door) house, presumably to find someone who had answered the call.

Denali and I are done sitting, so we head out on our walk.  We see the rabbits he chased once when I let him off leash in a field before noticing them.  That experience must not have left a lasting impression for the rabbits, or maybe they recognize that he's on a leash, but either way, they barely scooch away as he lunges for them and tries desperately to break my hold.

I head back to my house to get ready for work.  As I sit on the corner of Dexter and Westlake waiting for the 30 to take me to the Seattle Center, the top grass and hay layer beside the bus bench starts throbbing, like a vampire digging through a grave (I watched an episode of Buffy last night), or a critter trying to break the surface (more likely).  The bus comes before I can see what comes out of there.

Birding and Porchin'

New camera!

Sit Spot - April 12, 2012 8:30 a.m.

High 50s, lower 60s.  A little cloudy.  Clouds are slowly moving NW.

The heron is the first sighting of the morning.  Darker than a Great Blue, slate colored.  It's heading west, working its way to the Sound.  Jake and I spot it two evenings later, same heron, same shade, same direction, different time of day.

On this morning of April 12, a mom is packing up a stroller to wheel her kid somewhere on Stone Way, right under the heron soaring west.

Two robins make appearances.  One of them flits about the yard, gathering nest materials, and stopping for juicy worms if it is so lucky to find one.  E.J. was working in the garden the other day, and one of these robins was busy working by the side of the house, tugging and munching on good worms.

The other robin sits up top on a telephone wire and keeps an eye out for its partner.  They don't chirp at one another, they stay within eyesight.  The robin on the ground poops on the curb then hops under Madden's car as some humans walk by on the sidewalk.  It's so funny to see it walk, and hard to describe.  It moves quickly, like a run, but with the pace of a walk.  Scurrying is probably the best word.

A chickadee flies in to sit on the lower branches of the Cedar tree.  It doesn't do the call that named it (chicka dee dee dee), instead it makes some short peeps.  I never realized how high pitched Chickadees were.

Then I hear the laughing birds.  Each time I see them, I think, "Finch."  Something about the beak, or size and shape of the body.  The truth is I'm not an expert with birds, really I just feel like they are finches.

They are also in a pair, everyone seems paired up by now.  The one I've seen make the laughing sound has a red breast.  This laughing noise sounds like a child on the piano learning arpeggios.  Jumping up and down across the notes, showing off how well it can hit them.

Two smaller birds who I don't know, and don't come close enough to introduce themselves, are also paired up together in the grass.  They are about the size of chickadees, maybe even a little smaller, but they don't have any markings I can notice.  They chirp back and forth as they go about their business.

The crows are soaring about up top, they don't come down to the street on April 12.  They are acting reasonably sane.  Last Saturday, the second day of Passover, when we had our Seder, they were going crazy.  One crow would perch on a tree or roof, and call out to the murder of 7 or 8.  As if the perching crow was directing the rest of them, the murder would dance, swoop, turn, and dive together.  This was around the time of the full moon.  E.J. thought they were acting out the story of the plagues.

On April 12, runners and young professionals move by, all in a hurry.  Their ears or eyes are shut out by earplugs or a smart phone.  I do not write this to judge them.  In an hour, in the middle of my work day, I am glued to the computer screen or absorbed with texting my students.  These are just more patterns I'm noticing.

A few weeks ago, there was a Hummingbird.  I looked at a Crow sitting on top of a house up Interlake, and a hummingbird came and hovered next to it for a fleeting moment.

When I walk up to my room after my sit spot on April 12, I see the Red-Breasted Laughing Finch sitting in the tree outside my window.  I think they are building a nest over my windows.  Fine by me.  I can't think of a better bird song to wake up to on Seattle spring mornings.

You can barely see their nest above the diagonal beam