A brief question today: do you have an especially beloved, especially admired, especially associated-with kind of bird?
I ask this thinking of New Zealand’s Bird of the Year competition (in which anyone can vote!), as well as casting my mind back a lot to the New Year’s Bird letter I wrote back in January, while looking at a flock of pigeons flashing circles around one building nearby, recalling the Beirut of my childhood and the strange wisdom of its rooftops.
Penguins. Any kind of penguin, but maybe especially emperor penguins bc my longtime cat looks like when when he sits up and shows us all his white tuxedo belly.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for quail. We used to have a family of quail that would run along the back fence of my parents' back yard when I was growing up. I loved seeing them run along on their way to somewhere. And, when I was born, I had a single curl of hair that kind of stuck up off my forehead and my parents always called it my "quail knot". So, I've always just kind of loved quail.
Since I was 16, I've wanted a baby raven. When I was in college there were a bunch of groups of ravens that always used to be around campus. I started recognizing some of them and would wave whenever I saw them. I always regret not making closer friends with them.
The swans thing... it sort of snuck up on me. Apparently a subset of swans trust me? The winery near where I grew up had a family of swans who nested around their pond, and always warned people that they were dangerous. I don't know how I ended up stumbling onto their nest, but one of the swans was there. The babies were elsewhere. I looked at the swan, it looked at me, then it shook itself (didn't puff up in attack mode) and "threw" a few feathers at me before settling back down. Little 13-yr-old moon-eyes here picked them up and ran back to show Mom, and I got a stern talking to that I get now, with hindsight. But it's a pattern. Some swans like to give me feathers. In Brooklyn's Prospect Park there are swans that are very comfortable with people, and those bruisers somehow decide to sit next to me while I'm writing, and leave me a feather.
Putting aside all the usual favorites--corvids, large raptors, etc.--I think my favorite avian dinosaur is a toss-up between goldfinches and downy woodpeckers. I never paid them too much attention before, but this year I took up photography, and the backyard birdfeeders at my in-laws' house draws tons of the buggers. Downy woodpeckers are especially bold when they're digging into suet cakes, so I was able to plant my tripod just a couple feet away and take plenty of pictures using a remote shutter release. Lots of video, too.
As for non-avian dinosaurs, I'm going with Deinonychus. I know it falls under the "usual favorites" category, but a story I'm writing has them working alongside humans in space, so I've been marinating in research about them. Those huge toe claws that were vaunted as killing blades? Seems they were likely more for grabbing--holding down large prey as adults, and possibly climbing trees as juveniles!
Owls! My Twitter avatar is an image of a barn owl head rising up out of of the Andromeda galaxy. I can't say why the barn owl was chosen, other than that I had a close encounter with one--a kind of moment of interspecies communion--at an environmental field trip with my son and his class (I was a chaperone.) At some point, I hope to write some science fantasy story that actually makes use of this image.
Barn owls strike me as singularly alien and inscrutable. I guess I may feel this way myself, sometimes.
Owls for my alma mater, avocets for their .weird upturned beaks and graceful shapes (they're also associated with happy memories of birdwatching with my dad as a child)
For me it'll always be the kakapo. A flightless bird that's forgotten it can't fly and so keeps throwing itself out of trees and hitting the ground, frequently dying in the process. I have such admiration for its dedication to the bit.
Of course Canada had its own bird-off a few years back, and chose the Grey Jay. And they are lovely and friendly and curious corvids, but my heart belongs to the Ravens and Crows. Not for their goth uniform, but for their cleverness and sense of humour.
Birds are amazing, and I cannot choose just one. I love pheasants - they are such majestic birds. The golden pheasant is magnificent! I love my backyard birds - robins, blue jays, finches, grackles (yay for grackles). Owls and corvids are great, of course. I love crows and magpies in particular :) :) I also love watching water fowl of all kinds. I also admire quail, I think about them as Ursula's birds, and wear a quail pin in her honor :)
I am partial to warblers. My affinity for them took a strange path (I used “collected warblings” as the title of my blog before formalizing it as a book review practice and changing its name to “The Warbler”). Funny little birds, warblers.
I've got a soft spot for the Northern Flicker. A few years back I was getting into the Merlin bird ID app because my kids kept asking "what bird is that?" and I often had no idea. I remember being psyched to identify the northern flicker. They're so beautiful, especially in flight with their wings open.
Jays. The european, pink-and-pied, blue-only-on-its-wing-as-it-flies variety. Seeing one on the lawn outside my bedroom window aged around 5 was what got me into birdwatching in the first place. Also, they're corvids, so really clever.
Ahhhhh, I love hummingbirds so much. Feisty courageous little hovermurderbirds, sipping nectar from flowers to power their curiosity and their lightning-fast insect hunting, moving so fast their wings are all but invisible. The ones I have in my backyard (I HAVE HUMMINGBIRDS IN MY BACKYARD) make such a distinctive little "cht! cht!" sound, and are unbothered by my existence so long as I move slowly, and will even come inspect me to try and figure out if I'm a flower or a hummingbird feeder (and, when inevitably I am not, scold me for disappointing them before flashing away over the fence).
I saw a photograph once of a corvid of some sort holding a flower and a hummingbird inspecting the flower as though to feed from it, and I love that image so, so very much. Drink, my potent, small friend, so you have the energy to go off and do your needful business, your passion and your violence, and then we will meet again soon.
I'm not much of a birder, but I've always loved watching swallows - the grace and agility of their flight is amazing.
Martin Simpson, one of my favourite musicians, has a soft spot for birds - and I think his "Dark Swift and Bright Swallow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtPlVsy5kg captures it for me
The southern red bishop, a small, plump weaverbird, brilliant red and glossy black.
Whooping cranes, hundreds of them, flying high overhead in great ragged V formations, more of them coming through all day, the air full of distant honks; south at the end of summer, and north at its return
Swarms of hummingbirds, tiny and palpitating and flicker-fast and vicious, around the feeders in Yakutat, spellbinding the cats at the window.
Cormorants, smug and sinuous and instantly appealing, like an otter.
The nēnē, as if a Japanese watercolour artist had redesigned the Canada goose to be more appealing: the shortened and innocent-looking face, the unaccountably chunky-looking neck, mostly dense fluff, with smudges of colour and dark diagonal lines; just as much an asshole as regular geese.
The kestrel, the windfucker, hovering perfectly in the sharp wind-cut at the top of a ridge, intent on the grass below.
The stillness and focus of blue herons, and the unexpected size of their wings.
How chickens *raced* one another to kill and eat corn-crickets, possibly the most repulsive and unpalatable-looking insect in existence.
The way the doves called in the morning in Zimbabwe, a rhythm that has never left my head and makes every other dove-call seem off.
The bird-call that I only ever heard in videogames, almost the same exact clip, until I heard it hiking in the Great Smokies and realised it was an actual thing. (I have since forgotten what the damn bird is.)
The ridiculous dancing gait of cattle-egrets as they chase after a lawn-mower, hunting insects.
Mynah birds, gold and black and brown, strutting around Oahu as though they owned the place; and the very well-fed one in an aviary at the Honolulu zoo, who sat and used its highly versatile voice to make the most obnoxiously grumpy noise imaginable.
But the most magnificent birds I've ever seen are the huge, beautifully groomed ravens who loiter around dumpsters in Juneau and Sitka.
My dad instilled in me a love of the Common Loon. Its calls are haunting and beautiful, it’s graceful in the water and awkward in the air, and its red eyes creep me the heck out.
Robins. My Grandma died of Cancer this past summer, and my mom and I both had to quarantine in the basement for two weeks after her funeral. It was hard -- but there was true solace in the fact that a pair of robins built a nest in our neighbour's roof, visible from our backyard. We could see the mother sit on her eggs, the fledges clamour for food, and even got to see them leave the nest. There were two broods over the course of the summer.
My Grandma loved birds as much as we do -- having them share the summer with us felt just wonderful.
I... hmm. Hmm! Too many? This year in particular I'm growing more familiar with the Pacific Northwest's closest answer to finches, because I'm missing great-tits and bluetits and coaltits and chaffinches something fierce, but at least we do have the junco here with its little black bib and general sphericality. Living within a hundred yards of the shipyards and the ocean, and under the shadow of a dozen massive maples who play host to a very large rookery, the crows and gulls seem determined to rope me in to a very montague-and-capulet-esque running battle for supremacy which the crows, although smaller, inevitably win. But the rowan opposite my window has lost half its berries already, which is very early, and so I must imagine the juncos and the sparrows are particularly hungry, this year, and thus they win my vote, out of sympathy.
The great potoo! Weirdly comical (yet very helpful for hunting) eyes and that beak, no it's a giant frog mouth, no, wait what is it?! And the call! It's like me before morning coffee (after would be more like the unladylike shriek of the bald eagle...) The potoo-love started after I read Helen MacDonald's Vesper Flights and was like, what the hell is a nightjar? An all-time favorite is the American kestrel. Brooklyn has some funky kestrels that take to diving into hedges and bushes to get to the sparrows; it's always a pleasure to watch an expert in action.
Ducks. Particularly mallards, but really ducks in general. My husband really likes ducks and all, and so I have spent a lot of time watching them. They’re such a mix of serene and goofy, competent and clumsy. Plus ducklings are pretty great.
So many... but today, the ruby-throated hummingbird! It weighs 3 grams, its heart beats over 1000 bpm when it's in motion, it flaps its wings in a figure eight pattern 53 times a second, and it migrates over the gulf of mexico twice a year! For a while, there was actually a hypothesis that it rides on the backs of bigger birds instead of flying itself lol
And normally the smaller a bird is, the shorter its lifespan is, but whereas small songbirds (9-12 grams) usually live about 5-7 years tops, some female ruby-throated hummingbirds have lived 10-12 years!
All birds! I am THE BIRD LADY!! I suppose though, the one I admire and cherish the most would be a Phoenix ( wouldn't it be exquisite if they actually existed!!!) Followed oh-so-closely behind by the Peacock. I now proudly own one, and couldn't be happier. :) I most associate with the crow or raven though, feeling a bit like a loner, mistakenly cold and distant.... It also holds a special place in my heart as I will always reminisce of Poe in it's presence.♥
A new bird friend comes to mind, primarily because of a close encounter with a pair while out walking recently: the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. There are many birds I admire, that I’m friends with in those ways that humans and nature relate.. But this discovery of the little kinglet is the first to yield a basic reaction of SWOOOON.
This is an embarrassing answer, but it is true. There's one bird I associate with beauty and one bird that I will always associate with the year 2020. They are ... this is going to sound so insanely cheesy to say on your blog, but...
OK, Amal. You know I adore you, but I seriously wish anyone else had asked this question. Anyone other than Max, obviously.
Cardinals and blue jays.
I've taken a million pictures of amazing things, but there's nothing as stunning as a cardinal on a snowy perch on a sunny winter day. The colors just explode at a time of the year where you start to think you'll never see anything but gray. I live in Michigan, so I'm not short on stunning images in nature, but it is that vivid red against blue sky and bright white snow.
So that's the beauty. The 2020 bird has to be a blue jay. Because of COVID, which hit this area extremely hard in the first wave, human activity has plummeted. That's led to an explosion of other mammals. I live in an old neighborhood less than three miles from the Detroit city limits, but we had deer and red foxes wandering down the street.
We've also had an enormous number of squirrels. Mostly black gray squirrels, but a growing number of gray gray squirrels, a few red squirrels and unusually for this area, a couple fox squirrels. On my daily 45-minute walk around the neighborhood, I can always see at least a couple squirrels dashing about.
This has not filled the local blue jay population with glee. This year, more than any I can remember, dawn brings The Screaming.
There must be a Changing of the Screamer ceremony during the day, but I've never seen it. I know they start as the sun rises and they are still there to greet me as I finish my walk in twilight. I think their call will always remind me of this summer.
Blue tits are my birds: they are small, cheerful, chattery and sociable, they are blue and yellow (my favourite colours) and they are very common in the UK, where I live.
I'm very fond of doves, the regular mourning doves that hang out around where I live, but my favorite birds are the feral parrots that have haunted Los Angeles for decades. They're noisy, loud, colorful, and fly past my window in flocks incongruous with the concrete jungle I live in.
Chickadees. They stayed around in winter, and I only wanted the chickadee placemat and coaster from the set my granddad had with various common North American songs birds.
Penguins. Any kind of penguin, but maybe especially emperor penguins bc my longtime cat looks like when when he sits up and shows us all his white tuxedo belly.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for quail. We used to have a family of quail that would run along the back fence of my parents' back yard when I was growing up. I loved seeing them run along on their way to somewhere. And, when I was born, I had a single curl of hair that kind of stuck up off my forehead and my parents always called it my "quail knot". So, I've always just kind of loved quail.
Shrike.
I am infinitely grateful to chickens, and all they have given us.
I have two - ravens and swans.
Since I was 16, I've wanted a baby raven. When I was in college there were a bunch of groups of ravens that always used to be around campus. I started recognizing some of them and would wave whenever I saw them. I always regret not making closer friends with them.
The swans thing... it sort of snuck up on me. Apparently a subset of swans trust me? The winery near where I grew up had a family of swans who nested around their pond, and always warned people that they were dangerous. I don't know how I ended up stumbling onto their nest, but one of the swans was there. The babies were elsewhere. I looked at the swan, it looked at me, then it shook itself (didn't puff up in attack mode) and "threw" a few feathers at me before settling back down. Little 13-yr-old moon-eyes here picked them up and ran back to show Mom, and I got a stern talking to that I get now, with hindsight. But it's a pattern. Some swans like to give me feathers. In Brooklyn's Prospect Park there are swans that are very comfortable with people, and those bruisers somehow decide to sit next to me while I'm writing, and leave me a feather.
Putting aside all the usual favorites--corvids, large raptors, etc.--I think my favorite avian dinosaur is a toss-up between goldfinches and downy woodpeckers. I never paid them too much attention before, but this year I took up photography, and the backyard birdfeeders at my in-laws' house draws tons of the buggers. Downy woodpeckers are especially bold when they're digging into suet cakes, so I was able to plant my tripod just a couple feet away and take plenty of pictures using a remote shutter release. Lots of video, too.
As for non-avian dinosaurs, I'm going with Deinonychus. I know it falls under the "usual favorites" category, but a story I'm writing has them working alongside humans in space, so I've been marinating in research about them. Those huge toe claws that were vaunted as killing blades? Seems they were likely more for grabbing--holding down large prey as adults, and possibly climbing trees as juveniles!
Owls! My Twitter avatar is an image of a barn owl head rising up out of of the Andromeda galaxy. I can't say why the barn owl was chosen, other than that I had a close encounter with one--a kind of moment of interspecies communion--at an environmental field trip with my son and his class (I was a chaperone.) At some point, I hope to write some science fantasy story that actually makes use of this image.
Barn owls strike me as singularly alien and inscrutable. I guess I may feel this way myself, sometimes.
Owls for my alma mater, avocets for their .weird upturned beaks and graceful shapes (they're also associated with happy memories of birdwatching with my dad as a child)
For me it'll always be the kakapo. A flightless bird that's forgotten it can't fly and so keeps throwing itself out of trees and hitting the ground, frequently dying in the process. I have such admiration for its dedication to the bit.
Of course Canada had its own bird-off a few years back, and chose the Grey Jay. And they are lovely and friendly and curious corvids, but my heart belongs to the Ravens and Crows. Not for their goth uniform, but for their cleverness and sense of humour.
Birds are amazing, and I cannot choose just one. I love pheasants - they are such majestic birds. The golden pheasant is magnificent! I love my backyard birds - robins, blue jays, finches, grackles (yay for grackles). Owls and corvids are great, of course. I love crows and magpies in particular :) :) I also love watching water fowl of all kinds. I also admire quail, I think about them as Ursula's birds, and wear a quail pin in her honor :)
I am partial to warblers. My affinity for them took a strange path (I used “collected warblings” as the title of my blog before formalizing it as a book review practice and changing its name to “The Warbler”). Funny little birds, warblers.
I've got a soft spot for the Northern Flicker. A few years back I was getting into the Merlin bird ID app because my kids kept asking "what bird is that?" and I often had no idea. I remember being psyched to identify the northern flicker. They're so beautiful, especially in flight with their wings open.
Nowadays I can't see one without thinking of H. Jon Benjamin dancing to them in his morning bird report. Such joy! https://twitter.com/HJBenjamin/status/1284988373808164867?s=20
Jays. The european, pink-and-pied, blue-only-on-its-wing-as-it-flies variety. Seeing one on the lawn outside my bedroom window aged around 5 was what got me into birdwatching in the first place. Also, they're corvids, so really clever.
Ahhhhh, I love hummingbirds so much. Feisty courageous little hovermurderbirds, sipping nectar from flowers to power their curiosity and their lightning-fast insect hunting, moving so fast their wings are all but invisible. The ones I have in my backyard (I HAVE HUMMINGBIRDS IN MY BACKYARD) make such a distinctive little "cht! cht!" sound, and are unbothered by my existence so long as I move slowly, and will even come inspect me to try and figure out if I'm a flower or a hummingbird feeder (and, when inevitably I am not, scold me for disappointing them before flashing away over the fence).
I saw a photograph once of a corvid of some sort holding a flower and a hummingbird inspecting the flower as though to feed from it, and I love that image so, so very much. Drink, my potent, small friend, so you have the energy to go off and do your needful business, your passion and your violence, and then we will meet again soon.
I'm not much of a birder, but I've always loved watching swallows - the grace and agility of their flight is amazing.
Martin Simpson, one of my favourite musicians, has a soft spot for birds - and I think his "Dark Swift and Bright Swallow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWtPlVsy5kg captures it for me
"... when spring's first swallow split the sky
And I was lifted above all care
As the swallow swung through the salted air
Come from savanna and desert and sea
To mark another year for me"
The southern red bishop, a small, plump weaverbird, brilliant red and glossy black.
Whooping cranes, hundreds of them, flying high overhead in great ragged V formations, more of them coming through all day, the air full of distant honks; south at the end of summer, and north at its return
Swarms of hummingbirds, tiny and palpitating and flicker-fast and vicious, around the feeders in Yakutat, spellbinding the cats at the window.
Cormorants, smug and sinuous and instantly appealing, like an otter.
The nēnē, as if a Japanese watercolour artist had redesigned the Canada goose to be more appealing: the shortened and innocent-looking face, the unaccountably chunky-looking neck, mostly dense fluff, with smudges of colour and dark diagonal lines; just as much an asshole as regular geese.
The kestrel, the windfucker, hovering perfectly in the sharp wind-cut at the top of a ridge, intent on the grass below.
The stillness and focus of blue herons, and the unexpected size of their wings.
How chickens *raced* one another to kill and eat corn-crickets, possibly the most repulsive and unpalatable-looking insect in existence.
The way the doves called in the morning in Zimbabwe, a rhythm that has never left my head and makes every other dove-call seem off.
The bird-call that I only ever heard in videogames, almost the same exact clip, until I heard it hiking in the Great Smokies and realised it was an actual thing. (I have since forgotten what the damn bird is.)
The ridiculous dancing gait of cattle-egrets as they chase after a lawn-mower, hunting insects.
Mynah birds, gold and black and brown, strutting around Oahu as though they owned the place; and the very well-fed one in an aviary at the Honolulu zoo, who sat and used its highly versatile voice to make the most obnoxiously grumpy noise imaginable.
But the most magnificent birds I've ever seen are the huge, beautifully groomed ravens who loiter around dumpsters in Juneau and Sitka.
My dad instilled in me a love of the Common Loon. Its calls are haunting and beautiful, it’s graceful in the water and awkward in the air, and its red eyes creep me the heck out.
Robins. My Grandma died of Cancer this past summer, and my mom and I both had to quarantine in the basement for two weeks after her funeral. It was hard -- but there was true solace in the fact that a pair of robins built a nest in our neighbour's roof, visible from our backyard. We could see the mother sit on her eggs, the fledges clamour for food, and even got to see them leave the nest. There were two broods over the course of the summer.
My Grandma loved birds as much as we do -- having them share the summer with us felt just wonderful.
I... hmm. Hmm! Too many? This year in particular I'm growing more familiar with the Pacific Northwest's closest answer to finches, because I'm missing great-tits and bluetits and coaltits and chaffinches something fierce, but at least we do have the junco here with its little black bib and general sphericality. Living within a hundred yards of the shipyards and the ocean, and under the shadow of a dozen massive maples who play host to a very large rookery, the crows and gulls seem determined to rope me in to a very montague-and-capulet-esque running battle for supremacy which the crows, although smaller, inevitably win. But the rowan opposite my window has lost half its berries already, which is very early, and so I must imagine the juncos and the sparrows are particularly hungry, this year, and thus they win my vote, out of sympathy.
Killdeer. Riding my bike home in the gloaming of summertime Ottawa evenings, rolling through pockets of cool air, hearing their song: a prized memory
The great potoo! Weirdly comical (yet very helpful for hunting) eyes and that beak, no it's a giant frog mouth, no, wait what is it?! And the call! It's like me before morning coffee (after would be more like the unladylike shriek of the bald eagle...) The potoo-love started after I read Helen MacDonald's Vesper Flights and was like, what the hell is a nightjar? An all-time favorite is the American kestrel. Brooklyn has some funky kestrels that take to diving into hedges and bushes to get to the sparrows; it's always a pleasure to watch an expert in action.
Ducks. Particularly mallards, but really ducks in general. My husband really likes ducks and all, and so I have spent a lot of time watching them. They’re such a mix of serene and goofy, competent and clumsy. Plus ducklings are pretty great.
So many... but today, the ruby-throated hummingbird! It weighs 3 grams, its heart beats over 1000 bpm when it's in motion, it flaps its wings in a figure eight pattern 53 times a second, and it migrates over the gulf of mexico twice a year! For a while, there was actually a hypothesis that it rides on the backs of bigger birds instead of flying itself lol
And normally the smaller a bird is, the shorter its lifespan is, but whereas small songbirds (9-12 grams) usually live about 5-7 years tops, some female ruby-throated hummingbirds have lived 10-12 years!
All birds! I am THE BIRD LADY!! I suppose though, the one I admire and cherish the most would be a Phoenix ( wouldn't it be exquisite if they actually existed!!!) Followed oh-so-closely behind by the Peacock. I now proudly own one, and couldn't be happier. :) I most associate with the crow or raven though, feeling a bit like a loner, mistakenly cold and distant.... It also holds a special place in my heart as I will always reminisce of Poe in it's presence.♥
A new bird friend comes to mind, primarily because of a close encounter with a pair while out walking recently: the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. There are many birds I admire, that I’m friends with in those ways that humans and nature relate.. But this discovery of the little kinglet is the first to yield a basic reaction of SWOOOON.
Kestrels mostly. Their plumage and tiny-but-fierce-ness has my heart. Mockingbirds too. Starlings are like the night sky captured in feathers.
This is an embarrassing answer, but it is true. There's one bird I associate with beauty and one bird that I will always associate with the year 2020. They are ... this is going to sound so insanely cheesy to say on your blog, but...
OK, Amal. You know I adore you, but I seriously wish anyone else had asked this question. Anyone other than Max, obviously.
Cardinals and blue jays.
I've taken a million pictures of amazing things, but there's nothing as stunning as a cardinal on a snowy perch on a sunny winter day. The colors just explode at a time of the year where you start to think you'll never see anything but gray. I live in Michigan, so I'm not short on stunning images in nature, but it is that vivid red against blue sky and bright white snow.
So that's the beauty. The 2020 bird has to be a blue jay. Because of COVID, which hit this area extremely hard in the first wave, human activity has plummeted. That's led to an explosion of other mammals. I live in an old neighborhood less than three miles from the Detroit city limits, but we had deer and red foxes wandering down the street.
We've also had an enormous number of squirrels. Mostly black gray squirrels, but a growing number of gray gray squirrels, a few red squirrels and unusually for this area, a couple fox squirrels. On my daily 45-minute walk around the neighborhood, I can always see at least a couple squirrels dashing about.
This has not filled the local blue jay population with glee. This year, more than any I can remember, dawn brings The Screaming.
There must be a Changing of the Screamer ceremony during the day, but I've never seen it. I know they start as the sun rises and they are still there to greet me as I finish my walk in twilight. I think their call will always remind me of this summer.
Blue tits are my birds: they are small, cheerful, chattery and sociable, they are blue and yellow (my favourite colours) and they are very common in the UK, where I live.
Maybe it’s just my inner goth, but I adore ravens. They’re intelligence and the mythology surrounding them delights me.
I'm very fond of doves, the regular mourning doves that hang out around where I live, but my favorite birds are the feral parrots that have haunted Los Angeles for decades. They're noisy, loud, colorful, and fly past my window in flocks incongruous with the concrete jungle I live in.
Chickadees. They stayed around in winter, and I only wanted the chickadee placemat and coaster from the set my granddad had with various common North American songs birds.