I have made a pleasant picturebook

If anyone should happen to receive this message, hi hello! I would like to tell you that I’ve made a book called We know the lights will go out but we don’t know when, although perhaps you know this already? Maybe you even own this book, paid good money, and are now wishing I would reconsider my strict “No refunds under any circumstances” policy, who’s to say!? Anyhow, if you’re still with me and I hope you are, I would like to lovingly inform you: yes, it’s true, I’ve made a book, and here is a picture of me holding up a spread that features a cartoonish version of Dimitri Shostakovich dreaming he is a limnologist on aqueous adventures!!!

I am trying, in this picture, to keep from smiling with unseemly braggadocio, delighted as I am with how this picturebook turned out! Indeed this is a 140-page artist’s book, printed on gourmet uncoated paper, Smyth-sewn, and bound in linen hardcovers! Here I am again, relieved to realize the book turned out well and now I have no reason to sit in a gutter and cry while it’s raining!

Anyhow, should you find yourself intrigued or interested and would like to perhaps a acquire a copy, I will encourage you to get in touch with me posthaste, and don’t be afraid to sing to me with loving gusto!!!

I can be found here:

jb@smallbirdsongs.com

Anyhow: I’m no monster! In my fashion, I try when possible to help instead of hinder, and in case you’re still with me and I hope you are, here is a photograph I took in easy happiness. It depicts a late-season Goldeneye among the easy white highlows with some greens.

and here’s a fox among the silver halides. It is safe and healthy fun to photograph our local fauna using film, believe me!

Anyhow, hi hello! It’s nice to know you, even if I don’t! It may interest you to know that I post words and pictures almost every day on Instagram, which is a horrifying app or site, but I try my best to make the best of it. I can be found here:

@jackbreakfast

In conclusion: I don’t know who you are, but I would like to thank you from the bottom of my birdheart, ghostbrain, etc!

Keep singing; keep slugging; always onward; love only!

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A missive both promotional and emotional!

Hello! Since 2014 I have “written” and “published” two books. They are the first two volumes from a series called SMALL BIRDSONGS, hardcovers both industrial and vaguely elegant in design. They are sturdy and pleasant and look different, bless me, than the sort of books you’d find in bookstores. They are small-run signed-and-numbered affairs, you understand.

Both books contain many unorthodox and vaguely artful bird photographs. Both books contain many prose-poetries written by a “character” who is obsessed by these things:

1) problems and solutions

2) the birds of one’s birthplace

3) other people and how to live among them

 

4) the hopeful idea that in this life, little things mean a lot

5) brains and hearts and how they compare to stone and water

6) obsessions and compulsions and how these potential problems can be reexamined and reconstructed so as to help instead of hinder

 

7) dreaming while asleep and awake

8) the sweet science of repetition and routine

8) love (yes, love!) in its many bonkers forms

9) purpose, possibility, piety, and perspective!

 

If any of the sweet beans or polished mulchers wish to get hold of these birdbooks, please do let me know. Scant copies remain and I am eager to get them into hands both agreeable and appropriate. Thank you always; love only!

In pursuit of education by the waterside, etc.

Some of the good local whimbrels, in May. It’s no grand skyline here in T.O., but hoo boy, those whimbrels don’t worry about architectural aesthetics so probably neither should I!

Yes yes, we see mallards everywhere and by now I’ll bet they bore you worse than geese or pigeons, but if you saw one today for the first time, you would be astonished by that marvelous greentop, you’d be singing devotional duck songs all the way home!

And finally, an early migrant from early Springtime! The most common of warblers, yes yes, but if you’ve given up on the common birds then you’ve given up on life and love and education and you might as well get yourself a spoon and bucket of worms and tell yourself “This is the only dinner I deserve”. Please remember every day: the common birds have the most to teach us, as long as we let ourselves learn from them!

I forgot I had a “blog” / remembering Spring’s influenza

Tree swallow among the sumach, gazing into the foggy ethereals!

I was poorly already, but when the word came down that one of our rarer warblers was eating bugs in Etobicoke, it became essential for me to spend 5 hours in and around the dirt, snitching along the creek, hoping for pop-ups, easy light, and pictorial sweetwindows. Anyhow, the Kentucky Warbler is an elegant little softy but he is a demon also, and I consider him at least partially responsible for the influenza which ensconced me like a blanket of cold and leggy spiders! But feisty mulchers, worry not: I am on the mend, am no longer agued, and will live to taxidermize and photograph the good Spring warblers yet again!

Another pleasant look at the simple but dressy Kentucky Warbler, seen some days ago in southeast Etobicoke. Then I got influenza and hid in my apartment, but now it’s time to go snitching again.
P.S. The lamebrained composition was necessary because of problems to the left and right.

Hello! I haven’t posted anything since November and maybe you missed me and maybe you didn’t. Life is often ghostly and perplexing!

And you thought you had problems, etc.

And you thought you had problems, pt. 2

This plucky defender will torment hawks, eagles, and people! Were you ever startled by a sudden avian smash against your head? Probably this nasty guy was the culprit, bless him and bless you

Birds and words; history and mystery; moving money around, etc.

 

p.s.  Two different looks at the same gadwall drake along the reflective waterways of autumn.

Unseen snakes; popular color families; downtown problems.

Wrens are easy to hear but difficult to see, or so I’ve found, and thusly I was especially glad to have encountered this tiny trilling monster near a snaky hibernaculum in southeast Etobicoke.

When I was a young man I was often accused of being a luddite, but in truth, I love much of this new technology, and find it very useful indeed! I am a great fan of electricity, for example, but if suddenly there was no more electricity, I feel I could adjust quickly and without vexation. Anyhow, the horned grebe is lovely in all plumages, and here we see “old red eyes” well into his breeding blacks and golds along the semi-sapphire waterways.

This sorry sapsucker must have smashed into the Sheraton. I picked him up and moved him away from the pedestrian traffic. HIs neck was broken and of course I was astounded by his impossible lightness! He was very fresh, and I wanted to pick him up and keep him, but don’t worry, I didn’t. I will admit that I gave him a few pats and examined his feathers for a little while.

Love; Safety; Examples of Education.

Falling in love with wild birds, for me, was different than falling in love with a person. It was different than taking on a new hobby or discovering a new purchasable item to collect. The love was a revelation because it was a safe love; the birds could never love me back, which eliminated the pressures that usually come with reciprocal love, and so I was free to love freely.

Falling in love with wild birds made the other aspects of my life feel richer, sparkier, easier. The discovery seemed endless, and so I was falling in love not just with wild birds but also with art and knowledge all over again. Everything was new; I was nowhere near mastery; I couldn’t sleep; I had birds on the brain. I began to re-appreciate the city I once loved, then hated, then tolerated. These days I don’t worry too much about what Toronto’s become; we have many fine parks, and reasonable access to many lovable species. To wander with a camera and lens in delusion is good enough for me!
P.S. Northern saw-whet owl, impossibly tiny, seen among the low-lit trees and twiggeries.

Unfortunately, this picture is pretty disgusting, I guess!
When I lost my heart to wild birds in 2009 and began to photograph our local alar with a compulsive gusto, it’s true that I saw beauty everywhere. I still do, but perhaps my self-directed immersion has curdled my brain, because I see beauty also and especially in pictures like this one?

Among the easy white highlows; a hibernal happiness

Redpoll, with Alder Fallings, among the Easy White Highlows. As seen merrily in March, in scenic Port Credit, Ont.

I am just now remembering the redpolls among the easy white highlows, as seen in Port Credit, in early March, when snow covered everything.
I was sitting on the ground and delightedly photographing the streakier redpoll, when suddenly the paler redpoll jumped in. I had less than a second to work with, and this is what happened. It is very true that our eyes will almost always prefer to see the closer bird in focus, but the more I look at this picture, the more my eyes adjust, maybe. Perhaps this picture would be infinitely superior (or at least less bad) were the closer bird in focus, but it behooves me to share this picture with you anyhow.

And finally, another hibernal remembrance: the toothsome green-winged teal along the icy waterways.