Saturday, October 23, 2021

Birdtober Day Twenty-Three: Artist's Choice

 

 

For today I chose the Black-crowned Palm-Tanager, a frequent visitor to my yard here in Haiti. They are such pretty and distinctive birds, and they were some of the first I learned to identify from my bird book by James Bond.  In Haiti they are called Katje (four-eyes) because those white spots on their heads look like extra eyes.

 

I wrote a haiku, and I'm following it with some links to where you can see more photos, plus a video of how to draw these birds and the Hispaniolan Lizard-Cuckoo. The video is in Spanish with English subtitles. And, bonus: it includes some lovely footage of Hispaniola at the beginning.

 

 Photo Source: eBird.com


Bouncing branch to branch
Green and black and white, hopping:
Where there’s one, there’s two


More about this species: BirdsCaribbean, Birdfinding, Katje on Wiktionnaire.




2 comments:

Tabatha said...

I didn't realize that what I really wanted was to be able to draw them, but now I do. Thanks for the poem and video, Ruth! (I was just also looking at your "even eBird calls them goofy" poem, haha)

Heidi Mordhorst said...

Ruth! Look at that charmer, and his hidden compatriots (where there's one, there's two!) I found myself mesmerized by the drawing video. I won't try it, but it's soothing to watch someone else! How are things down there this week?