Spring starts...

Note:  For those looking for Esme Kenney's eulogy, it can be found below, or in the archives dated March 11th.  

Today I went out and did a touch of birding for the first time since my sister's death on March 7th.  In truth, I largely forced myself to do it; I am still in a difficult place where it is hard to take pleasure in much of anything, and hard to look forward to the future.  But I think it is important that at some point I take an active stand for myself and my spirits; there is some selfishness in this but I think Esme would want to see a smile on my face again.

The last couple of days, Sunday and Monday, were exceptionally tough.  I do not fully understand why.  It feels like part of me is coming out of shock, and I am losing shelter to find myself in the middle of something very heavy with no end in sight.  As horrifying as the first couple of weeks were, I had some intellectual understanding that I would come out of it eventually, but this weekend I had glimpses of the possibility that I wouldn't.  Which is scary.  And the understanding that maybe I would need outside help, even beyond the very close and supportive family I have.  I have never really felt that way before.  

Also, it rained both Sunday and Monday, and I had been used to reclaiming some basic connection with reality and a modest infusion of well-being from taking in some sun on a daily basis.  Last night I had a spot of music (Beethoven) with my string quartet which pulled me back somewhat so that I went to sleep in a better place.  And this morning, seeing the sun shining, I made the effort to get out in it first thing, with a walk at Hammond Pond, my favorite park in Newton, and a place I may see very little of in the future, as I move to Ipswich this weekend.  

Hammond Pond really doesn't come into its own until mid and high Spring, with copious carpets of ground cover, decidedly varied woodlands and wonderful patches of skunk cabbage in the marshy spots.  But there were a few birds frisking about, nothing noteworthy but it was good to hear their song, see their escalating activity and a few signs of nest-building from robins and goldfinches.  Common mergansers prowled the pond, a large community of mallards waded and swam through the marsh, downy woodpeckers rapped and golden-crowned kinglets hovered, all to the ever-present symphony of the red-winged blackbirds.

I feel better today, though still a long way from chipper.  Love to all.

Esme Kenney, 1996 - 2009

The following is the eulogy for my sister Esme who was taken from us Saturday, March 7th, 2009.

13 years ago we had the amazing experience of welcoming into the world a new baby girl. I remember the first I held her in my arms, I wondered about this new little being in the world--who she was, and who she would become.

Who was Esme Kenney?

When Esme was 3 years old, she already knew the make and model of the cars of every single member of her family and friends. When I would drive over to see her, as I got my welcome hug, she was usually looking over my shoulder to check and see what kind of car I was driving.

This interest extended into boats, when our family would take our annual summer trips to Canada. Her ability to identify boats was so good, that at the age of 6, after hearing a tinny rumble off in the distance over the lake, she would announce with supreme confidence “Here comes Bob in the 25.” And she was always spot on. And then she would run down to the dock, a welcoming committee you could always count on.

Her biggest dream in Canada was to drive the boat like the big kids. When she finally was granted her boating license, it became difficult to pry the steering arm out of her hands, but if we insisted, she would relent cheerfully – she was a generous soul. And if your boating skills were rudimentary, she would be happy to teach you.

She loved learning and exploring, and her school and friends were immensely important to her. In addition to becoming an expert in the fine art of making scrambled eggs and blueberry pancakes, she shared with us important lessons that she had been taught in school. Once she was asked what she had learned in Kindergarten that year, and she replied, very solemnly, “I learned not to bite and scratch.”

She loved the water, going snorkeling, and had even for the first time last summer successfully gotten up on water skis. She was scared of Daddy Longlegs, but very little else. Animals were her friends, from the baby chicks she raised to her beloved dogs.

Esme was a born artist. Those of you who know her parents wouldn’t be surprised to know that she was blessed with a lifetime’s worth of creativity.

She was a cellist, a guitarist, and a singer. She loved Bach, the Beach Boys, and High School Musical. She grew up surrounded by music and books. We were always reading to her, even as a little baby. Often after the story was over, she could be found outside walking in circles retelling the stories to herself in a million different imaginative ways. Sometimes we were pulled into the story, and played the ugly stepsister to her Cinderella or scullery boy in her royal castle in the sky. As she started to choose her own books to read, her favorites ranged from the Little House Books, to The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Twilight.

It’s apparent, from the number of people here, and the messages from all who came in contact with her. that Esme was a tremendously gifted people person. The bond she forged with the people in her life was truly amazing. I always knew that I had a very special bond with Esme, because we had such a great friendship, and loved to talk to each other and hang out. However I have a feeling that most of us thought that, that we all knew that we were important to her and that she liked being with us. And that was truly a gift, this gift of making us feel special and loved, and it came from the deepest, richest, most essential part of her soul. She loved people. Meeting them, talking to them, learning about them, and sharing with them about herself and her interests. I loved to check in with her with a chat or a phone call, and hear about everything she was up to, what she just did together with friends or family, and how much fun it had been. And it was always fun! She brought a spark to the air around her and if you were hanging out with Esme you were having fun and you were just happy to be around her and share that gift.

That spirit was so infectious - Esme got so fired up, so enthusiastic, about everything she did in life. Esme taught us not to take life for granted. Even the very simplest things were cause for pleasure, such as riding the subway in Boston or programming her father’s mobile phone. She just loved to do stuff, get involved, go visiting, get people going on some activity like a singalong or a board game. Her enthusiasm carried over to the people around her, we could all benefit from trying to live life with more of Esme’s spark.

Esme’s life was full of love, friendships, family and freedom. She was playful, imaginative, and deeply engaged with the people she was surrounded by. She was a family girl, and her family was most important to her.

But Esme taught us that everyone is many things to many people. She was a daughter and granddaughter, a sister, a neice, a cousin, and an aunt, but she was also a friend, a student, a young woman. As her family, we’ve always known how special Esme was from the day she was born, but even so it has been wonderful, and so healing, to hear so many stories from her friends from school about how giving, funny, spirited and kind she was. From how she met Sam and became good friends after he spilled milk on her, how she was always willing to sit with and befriend the lonely kid sitting by himself, how she stuck up for kids being bullied in the hallways, how she made friends all over the school, boys, girls, older kids, younger kids, even teachers. She was better friends with many adults than many adults are with each other.

I know that everybody who knew Esme, even for just a few minutes, could think of 10, 100 or even a 1,000 other things that she was, but the thing we miss the most now that Esme is not here, is not who she was but the ongoing person who Esme was becoming, every year, every day, every second. We were all so excited to see Esme grow and explore herself and the world around her, to see the new amazing woman this girl who we all knew and loved would become. She would have knocked us out.

And this is why her loss is so devastating – it’s not just a loss of what was, but a loss of what could become. A loss of incredible potential. This has left an enormous hole in our hearts. We want her back so badly. We want her back, to see her again, to watch her grow, to grow with her, to see the unique paths this unique person would take.

Faced with such a senseless crime and losing someone you loved so much, it is easy to feel that your world has lost its meaning and to focus on the anger and despair. However, it is important to remember that the sum of a person’s life cannot be measured from their final moments. There are none of us who would trade the 13 years that we had with Esme, that Esme had with herself and the world around her, just so that we could avoid feeling the way we do now. They were great years, and Esme’s joyful spirit was freely given to everyone she met, such that we all became better people for knowing her. Though it was short, we are endlessly grateful for the time and love we shared with Esme.

The outpouring of grief, love, friendship, support, of memories and well-wishes in these days has been phenomenal and inspiring. We all know how special she was to her friends and family but we have nonetheless been heartened by how many friends she had, how special she was to them, how shocked and grieved they are and the extent that they have now come forward to offer their condolences, their grief and their support in this extremely difficult time. It seems that everybody who knew her was touched by her gift and now is deeply saddened by her passing. And though it is very difficult, our memories and the spirit of Esme that we all share have inspired us to a celebration of her life and spirit, with musical tributes, art, poetry, thoughts and remembrances. This is what life is, what love is, and never let anybody ever tell you that there is no real goodness in the world: we have Esme’s life and the love of the people around her as proof of that. Hold that, keep it, treasure it, remember it, think on it every day of your life and bring that spirit to everything you do and the world becomes a better and better place in return.

Scenes from Austin

Our helmsman, Joe.

Kirsten, holding on.

Me again, in my new green sunglasses.

Brian, our master of ceremonies during the sailing excursion.

Skies at the Austin Kite Festival.  

Kirsten, John and Josie.

Well, I've now left Texas behind me, but not before a couple of adventurous days in Austin visiting with my friend Kirsten and her family.  She just about wore me out, but we had a great time, seeing local (and awesome) band the Gourds, going sailing on Lake Travis in gusts up to 45 mph, biking along Lady Bird Lake to the Austin Kite Festival, where as nice as the kites were the highlight was the chicken sandwich from kebobalicious (something like that), visiting with other college friends Brian, Anne-Marie and Margot and their families and children, and finally topping it all off with a Pretenders show (Chrissie Hynde does rock, definitely).  

Austin is almost criminally groovy, and winter seems an ideal time to visit there, not to mention the rest of Texas.  There seems to be tons going on, and the weather seems hard to beat, even for someone born and bred in the snow belt and finds the first snow of each season a pretty special time (the last snow is something else entirely, but at least Spring is around the corner by that point).  There's a million bands, everybody is biking, hiking or jogging around town, and good Tex-mex food graces every block.  

Now I'm back in Cincinnati to visit with family and get a few hometown chores done and get a couple 5-ways at Skyline before setting my sights back on Boston and my big transition to farm life up in Ipswich.    I need some boots.  

Scenes from El Paso

Me and my friend Jeff, one of my hosts in El Paso.

A view from El Paso with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, below in the near distance.

A cool string of houses in an older El Paso neighborhood (Sunset Heights, I believe it's called).

An El Paso house with some very cool decorations.

A mural at the El Paso History Museum showing the spaniard El Cabeza de Vaca and other survivors of their overland trek from the Gulf of Mexico trading (desperately, it appears) with an indigenous community.

A dry desert wash out of the Franklin Mountains.  We hiked up to the ridge where the outcrop shaped like an elephant is. I saw Canyon Towhees and Black-chinned Sparrows.

A cool thorny plant in the Franklin Mountains.

Lichen on some rocks.

Jeff, intrepid hiker.

A view of El Paso and distant mountains and plains of the Chihuahuan desert from the Franklin Mountains.

A couple thoughts derived from my Texas birding trip

One interesting thing about doing an extended bit of intensive birding like I just did in South Texas is what you learn about the distribution of wildlife across the landscape, and in particular how birds and other creatures find their places with the context of the human habitat.  I think most of us have a good sense by now of how much we have altered the various ecologies of our planet in the course of living our lives and developing our diverse cultures and civilizations. Even the largest tracks of roadless wilderness generally show significant signs of our presence, if only in the fact that most of them require political acts to try and keep them wild.  

Large pieces of wilderness like Yellowstone are, in my opinion, crucial, both for the conservation of many plant and animal species that are found nowhere else (particularly large predators) and the opportunities for outdoor recreation and education.  And of course many birds are found in places like this, sometimes birds that are not easily found anywhere else. But if you are a dedicated birdwatcher - that is if you spend time seeking out birds of interest wherever they may be rather that just watching birds while doing whatever else it is that you enjoy doing - you will find yourself in a great variety of places and habitats, some exactly what you might expect and others that are decidedly odd and might even by considered downright unappealing except for that elusive blackbird that is hopping around the spilled piles of grain on the margins of the cattle feedlot.  

During my recent birding trip to Texas with MassAudubon, we visited around 25 different sites of the course of a week, including:

A sewage treatment outfall pipe leading to a tiny, yet picturesque wetland of running water and overhanging trees (green kingfisher);

An urban pond on a college campus (ringed kingfisher, black-bellied whistling ducks);

Laguna Atascosa, an enormous (and carefully managed) wildlife refuge of wetlands, fields, saltwater bays and woods (crested caracaras, reddish egrets);

A series of exposed tidal flats clustered amidst fishing docks and seafood restaurants (long-billed dowitchers, american avocets);

A suburban front yard filled with hummingbird feeders (allen's hummingbird, buff-bellied hummingbird);

A county park of soccer fields and picnicking families (pyrullhoxia, golden-fronted woodpecker);

A state park of trailer campgrounds and small parcels of exquisite desert scrub habitat (roadrunner, black-throated sparrow, vermillion flycatcher);

A former citrus orchard painstakingly restored to native thicket by the local Audubon society (kiskadees, kingbirds);

The fields lining the runways of a small local airport (northern bobwhites);

A busy strip mall in McAllen (green parakeets).

You get the picture.  In almost all of these places, human lives were busily going about their business while hundreds of species of birds busily went about theirs.  One might argue that this shows the resiliency of nature and I would agree that there's some truth there, but it is also good to recognize that many of these places, however humble they may be, were carefully conserved by local governments, federal and state governments, or just plain old private citizens.  We would all be wise to look carefully around our own neighborhoods, cities, counties and states for the little patches of forest, field, marsh or beach that may hold natural treasures and think about what we might be able to do to help them stay the way they are or even help them out a step or two.  Let's remember that birding (and hiking, snorkeling, fishing, kayaking and any number of other outdoor activities) is not in and of itself an act of conservation; to the contrary we who are out in the field enjoying ourselves are putting additional pressures on these habitats, so it's important that we go a extra few steps to help out.  Give to local and national conservation organizations, develop environmentally responsible habits and shopping choices, keep informed on environmental issues and speak up when you feel it's important; work to minimize your impact when out in the field, volunteer at a wildlife refuge, help to instill a love of nature in a young (or old) person that you know.  Don't forget that people are part of the picture too - balance is essential.

Anyway, that's enough with the harangue.  Good birding!

Scenes from the Northwest

A cool mushroom by the side of the house.

We are ringed by mountains here. When the skies are clear, it is something to behold.

The budding birdwatcher, my niece Gabby.  This is what I like to see.

Future mountain-climber, my niece Sonja.  

The common goldeneye - you can really see the color of the eye.

Climbing logs with Skyler and Amalie.

The girls and their mom.

Gabby and I.

Nick out over the waves.

Running along the beach.

My favorite bird of the northwest, the varied thrush.

The climber again.

A few more photographs and some colorful moments from Texas

As you can see, on a trip like this it's easier to get a picture of a skittish bird in the distance than it is to get a shot of a fellow birder's face.  

A trio of memorable moments from my Texas birding adventure:

Stopping by the side of the road in the growing pre-dawn light early one day to watch thousands of sandhill cranes stream overhead in long lines and sinuous V's, the wonderful music of their bugling flight calls echoing mightily in the otherwise silent morning. 

An ecstatic moment as one of our intrepid leaders, Kathy, gets us on an odd bird cruising along with a bunch of wobbly, drifting turkey vultures and catching in the afternoon sun the thick white band across its tailfeathers, making it the elusive zone-tailed hawk.  Cries of surprise and joy erupt from our entire group.  Naturalist's note:  The zone-tailed hawk is a fascinating bird, appearing very much like a turkey vulture and cruising along with them in order to sneak up on unsuspecting prey who would not normally be very concerned about a vulture.  

A crazy end to a long day along a suburban strip of malls and fast-food restaurants, where our leader Strickland lands us right smack in the middle of an enormous host of raucous, colorful, flamboyant green parakeets hanging out in the midst of it all, on powerlines and flying in thick, fast formations, screeching, screeching. One of those moments it's hard to believe you've found yourself in the midst of. 

We're in the desert now.

Some wildly thorny and soft yellow flower-laden shrub called black brush.

Wetlands at Falcon State Park.

We do a lot of this.

Beep-beep!

Immature Gray Hawk.

Pyrrhuloxia.

A nest in the thorns.

An awesome desert landscape at Falcon State Park.

Along the Rio Grande.  

Just Pictures again, I'm afraid. Good night!

Santa Ana N.W.R.  A lovely, lovely, place.

Santa Ana again.

Common Paraque at Estano Llano Grande.  See if you can find him.

Me and some local color.

Plain Chacalaca.

Kiskadee!  Kiskadee!  Kisdadee!

Curve-billed Thrasher.

Another multi-species picture.  A bunch of ducks, basically.

More wetlands at Santa Ana.  This place was awesome.

The magnificent Harris' Hawk, courtesy of Santa Ana N.W.R.