Thursday, November 14, 2024

Reading Update

Book #61 of the year was Amor Towles' short story collection Table for Two. I like his novels better, but there were some enjoyable stories here.


Book #62 was The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah. I was fascinated by the portrayal of what it's like to live in rural Alaska.


Book #63 was The Identicals, by Elin Hilderbrand, a story of twins living on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.


Book #64 was Family Family by Laurie Frankel. An author's note says that Frankel wrote this to demonstrate that adoption isn't a second choice or something you settle for, but a beautiful way to make a family. I am paraphrasing because my library copy has disappeared off my Kindle already. I found this book very entertaining.


Book #65 was The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley. This was a time travel story in which I thought I knew exactly what was going on, until suddenly everything changed and I had to reevaluate everything. I love it when an author pulls that off. 


Book #66 was Real Americans, by Rachel Khong. I enjoyed this one a lot, too -- it asked interesting questions about nature and nurture.


Book #67 was Prince Across the Water, by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris. This was a historical novel about the events around the Battle of Culloden in Scotland. It was written for children, but I found it held my attention all the way through.


Book #68 was a re-read, Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Taylor. I've blogged about it a lot before, including here.


Book #69 was Sandwich, by Catherine Newman. I find myself gravitating these days to books about people with adult children (I wonder why), and this was one such book. It was absorbing and thought-provoking.


Book #70 was One True Loves, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The love of Emma's life disappears, and she finally moves on and gets engaged to someone else; then her first husband reappears. (This happens in the first chapter, so it isn't a spoiler.) What should Emma do?


Book #71 was The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods. I read this with my book club because one of us found it at a library sale for $1. We didn't enjoy it much, though our conversations about it were still great fun.


Book #72 was Rock Paper Scissors, by Alice Feeney. This wasn't at all my kind of book, being a suspenseful story where people are all lying to each other. I did like how the author pulled a twist I didn't see coming.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Birdtober Day Thirty-One: African Wood-Owl

Day 31. I could write about a Burrowing Owl, which I've seen and loved, but I decided instead to write about the owl in my own yard here in Kampala. I mostly hear this species, but I've also seen it, in the Botanical Garden in Entebbe. 


Photo Source: eBird.com


Awake, 2 AM

Hoots menacing, comforting

You're awake too, owl


©Ruth Bowen Hersey





Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Birdtober Day Thirty: African Green-Pigeon

I love green birds. There's something so tropical about them. I haven't seen this species in a while, but I really enjoy them.  In the past I've seen them at school more than once. Listen to their sounds in the video below. (Bonus: there's also a Red-eyed Dove calling, starting halfway through the video; you can read about those sounds here.)

Photo Source: eBird.com


 


African Green-Pigeon

 

You are cute beyond belief;
Green, but noisier than a leaf.
Bluish eye and purple wing,
And that growly, cackly way you sing! 


©Ruth Bowen Hersey


One more day of Birdtober! See you tomorrow! 





Monday, October 28, 2024

Birdtober Day Twenty-Nine: Roseate Spoonbill

 Photo Source: eBird.com


Roseate Spoonbill


Bird of cotton candy pink.
bending down to get a drink,
using your bill like tongs in salad
and singing your weird, croaky ballad:
Milliners once sought your feathers,
but now your birdy get-togethers
are safe and calm; you may seek fish,
mollusks, crustaceans, what you wish.
You won’t be made into a hat,
and we can all be glad of that.


©Ruth Bowen Hersey




Birdtober Day Twenty-Eight: Mosque Swallow

I had really hoped to see a Mosque Swallow during our recent trip to Lake Mburo because it was one of the likely birds listed. Unfortunately, I did not see one. 

 


 A page from Birds of East Africa


I found this poem called "Masjid/Mosque," by Urdu poet Akhtar ul Iman. There's a swallow in the poem: 


Or a swallow, at the approach of winter,

Seeks the mosque out for making its nest;

And curling up for hours in the broken arch

Tells the story of cold countries.


The mosque in this poem is abandoned, and no longer used for worship. That fits with the Mosque Swallow, which, according to what I've read, prefers abandoned buildings if it chooses to nest in a building. It also likes hollow trees, particularly baobab trees. But the swallow in the poem can't be a Mosque Swallow, because they don't migrate from cold countries, though they sometimes move around based on where it is raining. I am starting to think, after mostly unsuccessfully hunting for references to swallows in mosques, that the name comes from an attempt to place these swallows geographically, since they are found in Africa and Asia, often in areas where mosques would be frequent. Swallows in general do have a reputation for nesting around humans, hence the name Barn Swallow. There's a reference in Psalm 84 to a swallow nesting in the temple: "Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young - a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you" (Psalm 84:3-4).


Mosque Swallow

The swallow
has found
a home
in the abandoned
mosque.
She swoops
and
soars
to catch
termites,
makes
a chewed
clump of bugs
for her babies,
waiting for her
in their nest
of mud.
Blessed,
blessed
is she.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey







Sunday, October 27, 2024

Birdtober Day Twenty-Seven: Striped Kingfisher

Today's calendar says "Artist's Choice," meaning that I have to choose what bird to write about. There are so many I could have picked. I decided I wanted to write about one of the lifers (birds seen for the first time) I've had this month. We have a week off in October, and my husband and I went to Lake Mburo, in Western Uganda. There are many species in that part of the country that we don't have here, and during that trip I got fifteen lifers. They were all exciting, but I decided to write about the Striped Kingfisher. On the 4th I told you that I had seen nine different kingfisher species (in three countries). While at Lake Mburo I saw my tenth! It was the Striped Kingfisher.


Photo Source: eBird.com


Striped Kingfisher
Halcyon chelicuti


Halcyon bird
of blue and brown,
my Kingfisher species
number ten:
welcome to my list
of treasures.
Outsiders found you in 1814
in Chelicut, Ethiopia,
but you’d been around long before.
They added you to their list
of treasures.
I found you in 2024,
when the guide pointed up at you
where you watched, impassive,
from your tree.
I know you don’t care,
but I sure enjoyed
seeing and hearing you,
Striped Kingfisher.

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey

 

 

Here are the ten kingfisher species on my life list:

 

Belted Kingfisher - US

Ringed Kingfisher - Paraguay

Amazon Kingfisher - Paraguay

Green Kingfisher - Paraguay

Pied Kingfisher - Uganda

Woodland Kingfisher - Uganda

Malachite Kingfisher - Uganda

African Pygmy Kingfisher - Uganda

Giant Kingfisher - Uganda

Striped Kingfisher - Uganda 



Saturday, October 26, 2024

Birdtober Day Twenty-Six: Red-tailed Hawk

I'll never forget the day I first saw a Red-tailed Hawk. In Haiti they call them Malfini, though a bit of Googling suggests that the Malfini is used in other places for the Broad-winged Hawk. We were out hiking in February of 2020, and we met a man who offered to show us a nest. I thought he meant a Palmchat nest, because I had been asking him questions about one of those, but when after a little bit of a walk he pointed upwards, an enormous head appeared in my binoculars' viewfinder. For a moment I thought there was something wrong with my eyes, since the head was so very much larger than what I had been expecting to see. And then a few minutes later, the bird I had seen and its mate whooshed down at us because we had come too close. Our guide introduced us to his employer, who lived in a house right nearby. We were invited in for mint tea, and our host teared up when he told us that the Red-tailed Hawk nesting within sight of his home was the best thing that had happened to him that year. The whole experience felt magical to my husband and me. It was one of the best things that happened to us that year. 

Protective parents
Dive-bomb human intruders
Screeching warningly 


©Ruth Bowen Hersey