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Jesse watches birds and contemplates things. Lots of birdsong with intermittent thoughts subjects both avian and non-avian. Recommended to listen to at 1x speed when you're not rushing through anything.
Produced by Jesse's friend Zach, who appreciates the chance to share this with everyone.
W Lula St No. 1
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Jesse: [00:00:00] There's a whole mess of brown thrashers popping off in that tree. I would like to get a better look at them, but
I don't know, I've only seen pictures of cedar waxwings and I think they're just such cool looking birds. I'd love to see one. I'm gonna keep on [00:01:00] [00:02:00] [00:03:00] looking.
There's that cat. You stay away from my birds, kitty.[00:04:00]
Light winged pigeon.
I don't know if you can hear it, but you can hear those mockingbirds popping out. They're so funny. They're funny little birds. I've heard them, uh, I've had one squarely in my binoculars taking a picture. Oh, brown thresher. Um, squarely in my binoculars taking a picture of it. And it opened its little beak and it started calling exactly like, like exactly like a cardinal.
It's crazy. The only way you can get them is their cadence.
Hello orange neighborhood cat, I hope you have bad luck tonight.[00:05:00]
Oh and there's that family of deer that I will only have to enjoy visually and never culinar culinarially? In a culinary set, anyway. I can't shoot them because they're smart enough to
They're smart enough to stay in town.[00:06:00]
Right now it's mostly mockingbirds and white winged doves around my house. But, uh, who knows what it'll do, what it'll do as the year goes on. Oh, Chimney Swift, maybe? Little Flying Seaguar. I'm not super good at their call yet.[00:07:00]
We got a Cardinal and a
I think that's a Cardinal?
There's a whole mess of brown thrashers popping off in that tree. I would like to get a better look at them, but
I don't know, I've only seen pictures of cedar waxwings and I think they're [00:08:00] just such cool looking birds. I'd love to see one. I'm gonna keep on [00:09:00] [00:10:00] [00:11:00] looking.
Jesse: Alright, 7 10 on the clock. Evening chorus should be kicking off soon. Ooh! Hello, Mr. Mark. Mockingbird? Is that a mockingbird? Yep, mockingbird. White patch on the wings, black tips. Oh, white winged pigeon. This is already off to a busy [00:12:00] start.
Nope, Lightwing Dove, Lightwing Dove. Oh, there's that, I wonder if that was a blue jay I saw two days ago. It looks like it's going on to a different, a different part of this old abandoned school thing that the city's trying to sell. Yep, more chimney swifts. It was so funny, I saw this, this maybe two days ago, there's this San Laurel Oak inside this old abandoned school building.
That is, that is Mr. Jaybird's tree. He does not break intruders, which is normal for Blue Jays. They're little balls of pure hatred. Uh, there was a couple mockingbirds trying to get into his tree. He was not having it. [00:13:00] at all. Just zipping back and forth between seven or eight different branches. Just
funny little dude.
More white winged doves. I need to see where they are. If they're just migrating through because they're uh, they're new. I think they're new.
With my luck, I'm going to say that and look them up and they're going to be Like the only 100 percent endemic to Louisiana all year round species in [00:14:00] existence.
Whole mess of chimney swifts flying by. Mr. or Mrs. Catbird has fluttered off somewhere, but I can hear
Yeah, that's a wood thrush. That really musicals. Like, sort of flutey Warble.
Oh, shit! Where are you? No, come back.[00:15:00]
Oh, great crest flycatcher.
It could have been a brown thrasher. Could have been a brown thrasher, maybe it was too quick for me. But a big bodied bird, a big bodied[00:16:00]
bird. It feels faintly ridiculous to be recording this, but Well, many worthwhile things do feel faintly ridiculous when you start doing them, so Hm. Something to ruminate on. As I continue to not see birds. Or see birds in such a way that I can't see them. 100 percent identify them.
In the meantime, I have to consent myself with Schrodinger's Bird, yes. Chimney Swifts. I need to be more grateful for Chimney Swifts, because, like, every bird is a miracle, right? Little jewels fluttering through the air, making noise, like, what is that? What's going on with that?
I sure do see a lot of them. Sounds like it's popping off [00:17:00] down the street, so I'm gonna move down that way.
Hmm.[00:18:00]
I was sitting in an abandoned lot and I realized that you could see, you could see the outline of the building based on a couple of live oaks around it. They've been pruned back and they're growing towards the street, but not, uh, not into where the building was. Tracking!
Jesse: Merlin says there's a Cedar Waxwing nearby. That's like, I've been looking, trying to see one of [00:19:00] those birds for, well not trying, but I've been wanting to see one of those birds for ages. Oh my gosh, that would be so cool. Good karma.[00:20:00] [00:21:00] [00:22:00]
I had movement. Going away from the noisy, the nosy, that I was a human. I don't think I'm being that noisy but here I am talking to a microphone that I have no idea if it can even hear me because I'm speaking in my birding voice which is very soft so as not to disturb. The object, objects of my desire.[00:23:00]
You can hear the evening chorus picking up as the Terminator passes towards [00:24:00] us.
We got a gray cat bird. That'll be a new one for me. New one for the life list. This hobby is exactly like connecting, collecting Pokémon. Like, like exactly like collecting Pokémon. I would not be surprised to learn that Pokémon was inspired by birding.[00:25:00] [00:26:00]
Come on, Mr. Cat Bird, where are you?
We got [00:27:00] movement.
Got a couple of great crested flycatchers in the bush over there.[00:28:00]
I'm[00:29:00]
I saw something with the right head shape to be a cedar waxwing. It was silhouetted and I'm just, I know it's in the crook of a tree branch, but there's A bunch of leaves, and the waves just hanging out behind there. And I'm worried, if I look down, and see where I step, Is I want to get a better angle.
I'll miss it. Let's give it[00:32:00]
a [00:33:00] try.
[00:34:00] I feel like birding, uh, a new place, like maybe one that you've moved to recently, like in my case, is a really good way to, like, get to know the plants and the critters. Um, I think it's, uh, I think [00:35:00] Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass, she proposes. Uh, using the word kin to describe sort of the unhuman, almost like a, like a furniture, which of course will make certain, uh, ends throb in the heads of certain people, but anyway, sidebar aside, I feel like birding an area is a good way to just get to know a lot of,
in this new space. Like their timing, like really it's about a 20 minute period when birds have really started to pick up the timing. Trees they like. Half of the village gets so much [00:36:00] richer and deeper and more complex the more time you spend. The more time you spend out there.
That's probably the main thrust
that you've just gotta, you can spend money on fancy equipment.[00:37:00]
That brown thrasher, I don't know if the microphone is picking him up, but they've just been gone for seven or eight minutes now. It's crazy. Just without stopping. Maybe it's a pear? I don't know.
Some birds do that. Um, Carolina wrens will do that. A mated pair will, I think a Carolina, I think it's a Carolina Wren, a Carolina Wren will do that. A mated pair will sing to um, to communicate and define their territory. But I don't know about[00:38:00] [00:39:00] [00:40:00]
I think those peeping clicks are uh,
Kimney Swift, but let's find out. I'm, I'm like constantly referring to my um, my bird app, Merlin Bird ID.
Okay, so that's a cardinal. Oh, I see him. [00:41:00] How are you doing, Mr. Cardinal? Red as blood. I can't believe a bird that pretty is that commonplace. Bright red, that's crazy. Apparently, according to my bird app, there is
a great catbird around here. I'm getting a visual ID. Not a great catbird. A little more complicated, because Unlike Mr. Cardinal, grey catbirds are, you guessed it, grey. A color famously difficult to see in low light conditions which we are starting to approach. And these, uh, I love these cheap clapped out binoculars, but they are not, um, nearly as highfalutin as some [00:42:00] might have.
But that's okay.
Mr. Catbird, where you at? Mr. or Mrs. Catbird.[00:43:00] [00:44:00] [00:45:00] [00:46:00]
Oh, the street lights are on. My mom's gonna be mad at me. I'm 28 and live alone. That was a joke. That was a joke.[00:47:00]
There's some kind of festival thing on Main Street in town right now. Only a few streets over and I can hear it, but
man, it really seems like it's having an effect. Like the mockingbirds popped off when they were supposed to, but uh, they haven't like sustained that nearly as much. [00:48:00] I don't see the house finches. I don't see I saw one eastern bluebird two days ago, which is always, I mean, like just a ray of joy directly into my heart.
But uh, not as much. Not as much tonight.[00:49:00]
How goes it Mr. Blue Jay? Are they trying to muscle in on your tree? Villains. Mr.[00:50:00]
Blue Jay, it seems today.[00:51:00]
Two mockingbirds just freaking dived on me, man. That was cool. A little scary. What is that about? What's over there? Man.
Little miracles every day.
Little miracles every [00:52:00] day.
The requested flycatchers are popping off now, and, um, the ambulance, um
Okay, the ambulance has gone off to ambulance somewhere else.
That ambulance made all those great crested flycatchers shut up, which stinks a bit.
Love to see them though. I keep wondering how these street lights are affecting little bird friends too.[00:53:00]
Well, the window has chart largely passed. No Cedar Waxwing, but that's okay. Maybe I'll see one again. The Merlin app also said there was a Chuck Wills Widow nearby and I say false to that. Cornell Ornithology Lab, I know a Chuck Wills Widow. Chuck Wills Widow. I know that call. It is a It is a part [00:54:00] of my body and I have not heard it once since I moved here.
Yeah, there it is. Nighty night.