Mr. Troyer, the bluebird of the title essay, painted by Julie Zickafoose
I am not a birdwatcher. After a childhood of being dragged out of bed at dawn to visit places as delightful as the local sewage lagoon to scope out rare bird, I gravitated to plants. They keep civilized hours and never migrate to sewage lagoons.
Still, birdwatchers carry on the traditions of amateur naturalists, recording what they see and thus adding to our knowledge about the communities of species that make this planet such a fascinating and habitable place.
Which is why when my editors at Story Circle Book Reviews asked if I wanted to review Julie Zickafoose’s new memoir-with-birds, The Bluebird Effect, I didn’t hesitate. Zickafoose is a prolific bird artist, as well as the author of three books on nature nearby. Here’s part of my review:
“Each chapter in this memoir of a life spent observing, drawing, and rehabilitating birds is named for a particular species of bird and a topic epitomized by Zickafoose’s encounter with them. One of my favorite chapters “Carolina Wren,” subtitled “Kitchen Sink Ornithology,” serves as an astute introduction for the author. As a fellow freelance writer who works from home, I laughed out loud at the beginning, which expresses all the hopeful optimism of our isolated creative lives,
Living in the middle of nowhere, working from my home studio, I have to confess that I’m fond of email. I’ve got an all-but-defunct account that I check sporadically, just to make sure there’s not something important buried in the piles of spam that drove me away from it in the first place. And there, glimmering in the dross [one day], was a week-old nugget … inviting me to show some paintings at an upcoming ornithological meeting.
“And then Zickafoose’s self-doubt sets in,
My first reaction? He must be thinking of someone else. I’m no ornithologist; I’m a naturalist, a bird painter. … Then I sat back and thought for a bit. Well, maybe I am an ornithologist. I do study birds, each and every day, in between meeting illustration and writing deadlines and fetching Popsicles for the kids. There’s a pair of binoculars in every room of the house, sometimes three, and they are as necessary to my everyday life as water and air. I just had to interrupt this sentence to train them on a female Blackburnian warbler…. To find a pen and write that arrival down in my nature notes. This, I think, is the heart of science. Seeing a Blackburnian warbler is nice, but it really doesn’t mean much unless I write it down. (May 18, 2009. Arrived: Female Blackburnian in the birches. Had seen only males until today.)
“There is the heart of the book: Zickafoose is a thoughtful and intelligent observer who writes things down. Without that–no matter what her subject, whether memoir or mystery, she would have no material to work with, no stories to tell, no conclusions about the life of birds and the lives of we humans who share the planet with them.” (Read the whole review here.)
A sphinx moth pollinating Rocky Mountain penstemon in Monarch Spur Park
*****
And now the brag: The day before leaving for Washington state, I attended Plant Select Day at Denver Botanic Gardens, a gathering of folks who breed and grow plants adapted to our difficult climate, and those who design and maintain landscapes devoted to native and regionally adapted plants.
Every year, the Plant Select program honors a few parks and people who do an exceptional job of working with and featuring these special plants.
This year’s “Showcase Garden Award” went to—ta da!—Monarch Spur Park, the tenth-acre “pocket park” I designed and still tend at the end of our once-blighted industrial block. It was cited as “a little gem” and an excellent example of “doing a lot with a little”–that is, a little land and a little money (the park was built with a small grant and has no budget for annual operations; it is maintained by volunteers).
Thank you, Pat Hayward, executive director of Plant Select, and Panayoti Kelaidis of Denver Botanic Gardens, for recognizing Monarch Spur Park and the extraordinary community of Salida that brought it to life!
The park site "before"
Here are a few shots of the park (named for the railroad line that once ran along our block):
And "after," quite a transformation!
The interpretive sign kiosk at Monarch Spur Park, designed and built by a talented sculptor who I miss very much
Prince's plume, a native wildflower common in the redrock desert parts of Colorado
Susan, you make me want to read Zickafoose’s book and isn’t that what a review is ideally intended to cause? At least a good one. *G* I love the park! You’ve done a wonderful job with it and I praise both you and the upkeeping volunteers for that. And while you say you’re not a birdwatcher, after recently reading “Pieces of Light,” I have to say you are definitely a bird-noticer! I loved how alert you were to the various birds that populated your world even if only as passers thorugh. I suppose naturalism leaks over into all sorts of areas, huh?
Sam, I’m delighted that my review has you eager to read Zickafoose’s book. It’s definitely one to savor, chapter by chapter, as her life with birds unfolds. Thank you for your comments on the park–I spent four hours over there yesterday, planting new plants and weeding! And there’s more to do… always. But it gives people ideas for how to use natives in their yard instead of lawns, and that’s what I was hoping for. I enjoy birds; I’m just not passionate about them the way some in my family are (my brother is one of the most prominent birders in his region, and it always amuses me when I mention his name and other birder’s faces take on a look of awe). I just love all the species that populate the earth, even humans–mostly….
I have been thankful for Monarch Spur Park. Numerous times, I’ve gone there to fixate my eyes on something non-concrete, not-asphalt, and to watch the butterflies, birds, and bees. (Once, I rescued a butterfly, trapped in the Methodist Church’s basement, and brought it to Monarch Spur.)
I’ve also been to Denver Botanic Garden, and they’re a big deal. (And another oasis amid the concrete and asphalt.) To receive kudos from them is quite the honor, even if well-earned and -deserved.
Way to go!
Eduardo, I love the story of you rescuing the butterfly from the Methodist Church basement and relocating it to Monarch Spur Park! That’s just lovely. I’m glad the park is a bit of an oasis for you as it is for others. I never see many people in it at once unless a class comes to visit or a group stops to picnic, but it gets a steady stream of visitors, picnickers and bench-sitters over the course of each day. The honor of the award goes equally to the volunteers who helped found SPOT and the park—Martha Roskowski and Donna Rhoads—and those who help me maintain it, including Sue Zarbock and Jerry Stites, my most faithful of the garden crew…. It’s truly a Salida park, surviving on a wing and community goodwill!
The Bluebird Effect is the 2nd Zickefoose book I’ve read. She has such a way of making nature come alive. My M-I-L said she wasn’t sure if she liked the prose or the illustrations (also done by Julie) with commentary best. They each compliment each other so very well. I recommend anything by Julie.
Cathy, Zickafoose is equally talented with her illustrations and her words, isn’t she? I thoroughly enjoyed The Bluebird Effect, as you could tell from the review. Thanks for corroborating my sense of her work!
Congrats on the award for the park! I remember what that corner looked like the first time I saw it. Not so much a gem then. But now….WOW!
Blanche, You do know what it looked like! Beyond ugly, and definitely forgettable. Seeing people stroll through and read the plant labels or sit and picnic makes all the work to get to this point worthwhile….
Lovely park, Susan–what a beautiful gift you’ve helped the community give to itself! I’m eager to read the book: ordered it from your review and am waiting for it!
I think you’ll really enjoy Zickafoose’s perspective on life, and her sense of humor, Susan. And thanks for the compliment on the pocket park–maybe you Bill will make it to Salida someday and I can show it to you. I’d like that!
What a beautiful park you’ve created and help maintain in your own neighborhood! Congrats on a well-deserved award!!
Thank you, Susan G-T. It certainly feels good to have the work and the vision that brought it to life recognized….
Susan, I’ve been contemplating this blogpost’s opening line: I am not a birdwatcher.
I’d say you are one, albeit once-removed. Maybe less removed, seeing as you brother is a birdwatcher. Your previous blogpost’s use of, “fledging,” is further evidence.
As with so many things, it’s a matter of degree.
What I mean, Eduardo, is I am not a serious birdwatcher. I watch birds when they cross my awareness, and having grown up in a family of serious birdwatchers (my legally-blind dad still studies birds!), I may be more aware of them then some. But they’re not my focus. I’m a plant-person through and through. I respond to plants viscerally in a way I never will to birds. I know plants—I have, as Nobel-prize-winning geneticist Barbara McClintock said, “a feeling for the organism.” “I know my plants intimately,” McClintock wrote about the corn she studied, and I feel that way about plants, whether those in my yard and garden, or the wild plants that clothe and shape our landscapes. Sometimes I think I know plants more thoroughly than I do people.
As I have said so many times before, “I miss Salida.” Susan, you and Richard have enriched Salida in ways I never would have dreamt of. Someday I will return for a visit.
Hugs, Lindy
Lindy, I know you’ll come back for a visit someday, and when you do, you’ll be full of memories–some things will have changed (mostly for the better!) and some things will still be familiar and the same. It’ll be a trip to savor….