Birding While Running

Poetry comics on the wing

I bring my phone on my daily runs. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

The benefits? If I sprain my ankle I can call for help. I can track my pace via my running app and see how much slower I get every year.

Best of all, I can photograph birds.

When I noticed an unusual shape in a lakeside tree along my running path, I pulled out my phone and zoomed in for a better view.

The picture was a little blurry. But the comic wrote itself.

On a dawn run I noticed this owl among bare branches, silently observing the fields.

I ran home as the day brightened, glad to have a pot of coffee waiting for me when I arrived.

“Flocks of birds go fluttering under the sun’s rays,
not all are fraught with meaning.”

-The Odyssey

It’s fun think about what the sight of a bird could mean. Is it the symbol of something deep? Is it a shallow insight? Could it be both at once?

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon: Once you notice something new you will start to see it everywhere.

Since my first kingfisher sighting, I see them frequently—diving in the pond by the supermarket, making their distinctive call as they swoop down to fish in my neighborhood pond.

There’s something inherently funny about the ducks that rule the pond near me.

The way they walk. Their cackling laugh. The tufts of feathers on some of their heads (“Fancy Ducks,” my four-year-old calls them).

And the way the fly—it’s so awkward, it’s more than hilarious. It’s inspiring.

On a carefree afternoon, is there anything better than birdwatching?

I love the short poems of A. R. Ammons:

MIRRORMENT by A. R. Ammons 

Birds are flowers flying
and flowers perched birds.

This grackle that perched on my car window after I returned from a run? A unique flower, for sure.

Winter birds seem more serious, more severe. I see blue jays, Canada geese, and crows.

Robert Frost echoes in my brain whenever I encounter a cold crow:

DUST OF SNOW by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Birdwatching while running, then returning to my warm studio to write poems about the experience: no matter how much I rue the rest of my to-do list, I know I’ve given a small part of the day to something good.

And I know there are more birds out there waiting for their moment on the page.

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