A Spark Bird for Liam?

On New Year's Eve, Phoebe, Liam, and I were texting about remembering to notice our first bird of 2025 the next morning. Liam was already back in Columbus, but Phoebe and Oscar were still here with me in Whipple. Liam got very excited about going to an actual birding place on New Year's Day and trying to see a really cool bird. A birding co-worker had told him about Pickerington Ponds Metropark south of Columbus, which is the only place I've ever seen sandhill cranes in breeding season in Ohio. Oh, YES. Go there, Liam and Ayla! Go there!

(Sadly, they were not as well protected from cold on New Year's Day as they were the day before Thanksgiving, when we went to see cranes in Indiana! Didn't have me there with the giant duffel full of Michelin Man down parkas...)

I was at Pickerington Ponds in February, 2016, and it was fulla ducks and I'm almost sure the cranes were there as well. If you look hard you can see some ducks flying over this beautiful barn, a signature sight at the park.

So he and Ayla climbed in the car, innocent of binoculars or field guide, because they don't own either. I was of course writhing with frustration, but there was nothing I could do about it from two hours away. Believe me I was tempted to drive up with the right gear. My boy wants to bird? I am ON that like Bluebonnet!

I knew they'd have fun with the water and the open sky, and I figured they'd see something cool, binoculars or none.

It wasn't long before I got a call. "Ma? We're looking at some ducks with a white spot on the head. Do you know what they might be?"

Well, they could be several things, this time of year. Buffleheads. Goldeneyes, for two. Liam said he thought the white spot was behind the eye. OK, that narrows it down...

"Can you take even a horrible cellphone photo of them?"

I got these a few minutes later, just what I'd asked for.

Ayla had thought to bring a small astronomical telescope, hand-held, and she somehow held her phone up to its eyepiece and got...something. But in this one I could eke out enough to figure out what they were.

I studied the photos. "Am I seeing cocked tails here?"

"Yes!" Liam answered. "Their tails are cocked!"

I fired back with some shots of my Sibley guide, opened to the pages I knew had the answer.

When Liam realized the mystery birds were hooded mergansers, his excitement knew no bounds. "That's so COOL!!" he kept exclaiming. 

It IS so cool! I could have gone to Pickerington Ponds with Liam and Ayla, and shown them those mergansers through a proper telescope, and I'm sure they'd have been pleased. The whole difference was that he and Ayla found them themselves, had no idea what they were, were burning to know, and figured out how to get the information they needed to identify them. (call Ma).

I know damn well I was about three times as excited as they were. THIS!!

Phoebe was to drive up and have lunch with Liam on her way home with Oscar today, Jan. 5. So the second I hung up with Liam, I started making a birdwatcher's care package. First, of course, was a pair of 10 power Swarovski binoculars, one of my spares. (I find I carry the smaller, lighter 8 power).

I put a brand new bino bra on them, with a Zick-decorated leather shield.

Next was the field guide his dad and I had worked together on, with help from Phoebe's fourth-grade class focus group at Salem-Liberty Elementary. Why, that's Phoebe on the cover!

Bill wrote it, and I did many of the illustrations (My dear friend Mike DiGiorgio did lots of the western species). 

I also wrote the WOW facts.

I included a lens cleaning kit for the binoculars, with a lens cloth with my photo on it. Phoebe had found this red-morph screech-owl along the driveway when she was coming home from work around 9:30 one night when she was in high school. She came in the house, grabbed a flashlight, told me to get my big camera, and said she was going to show me something. 
She literally led me by the hand across the yard and just down the little hill in the driveway. She whispered that I'd have probably only one chance to take the shot. She flicked on the light, found the owl, shone it; I took the shot, and the owl flew away.

And the shot was perfect. We had no right whatsoever to get a good shot, but somehow we did. Angry bird! SUCH a great moment, captured forever, never to be repeated.

February 28, 2013, 9:28 PM.

Then I wrote a card to go along with it all. Now that's what you call home-cookin'.

I had to tell Liam how I'd been waiting for this moment for 25 years, and how excited I was that it was finally here. And that the perfect time to start birding is exactly when you start. 

I hope he'll remember that whenever he puts these old Swarovskis on. I hope he takes this moment forward in his life, and opens the door wider to the joy of birdwatching. Ayla, I'm counting on you to get him out in nature and noticing everything around him. You two can learn together. My mama's heart is full to bursting. 

If you're going to find a bird on your own, THIS is a mighty fine one to find. A spark bird for Liam? 

Time will tell. No pressure, darling boy. No pressure at allllll.....

                                    From the website of the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY.                                                                    

Isn't it lovely that the first bird Liam found on his own was this insanely cool little fish-catching                                                                   duck? May there be many more.

Liam is 25!

 My dear boy, 

  I never realized how having a birthday that falls on or around Election Day would factor into your life; all I remember was a rush of passion one February afternoon in 1999, and it gets blurry after that. Thus did biology deliver into my arms a nearly spherical baby boy who grew into a lanky wonder.

I miss you. But I always enjoy throwing together these birthday blogposts that celebrate you and the increasingly rare times we get to be together.  I'm so, so happy you're on your own path in Columbus, and that you've found a place where you're appreciated for the wonder you are, and can share a space with like-minded creatives and kind people. 

It's always such fun to see you in situ at Trader Joe's. Your coworker's heads all swivel, they smile knowingly as Mama Zick enters the store, tracking her boy.

You show me a beer made with (Trader Joe's oreo knockoff) JoJo's. Wut? And one called Mad Elf, a spicy Christmas brew that has 11% alcohol content, but "tastes like stinkbugs."

We start laughing and we don't stop.  I think one of my favorite things is to take you and Ayla out for a nice meal. 

All the better if Oscar and Phoebe are along, too! Addis Ethiopian Restaurant, North Columbus.

I love to go windowshopping with you, too. We mostly love to look at things we can't afford. 

Remember the 300 pound coffee table at Crate and Barrel?

This is how we know we're living in a gilded age. First, who could afford a 300 pound STONE coffee table? How much does it cost to ship? How many people does it take to carry it into your living room? Better decide where you want them to put it... FOREVER... because you're not gonna lift that thing EVER again. Much less dust under it. Or move it to wash the Ruggable. Sheesh. The impracticality of it all is overwhelming.

I love the little glimpses into your life that your too-sparse postings on Instagram afford me.  That's a really good whateverosaurus impersonation you're doing there, son! Look out! It's right BE-
HIIIND YOU!

LOOKIT THAT BOY!! That looks like a shirt your dad might have picked out, or worn. 

I'm just so thrilled you're having fun and exploring your new surroundings all the time. That you get to be around people your age (impossible back home; everyone has fled this town!) 

But no matter how far you roam, remember I am the little puff of ...wind...beneath your wings!

(they're set a bit low, I think).

I sure love seeing you in your new life with Ayla. What mother wouldn't be over the moon to see a photo like this one from June? Ah, you lucky kids. And you there, wearing my Dear Old Dad's pale blue eyes. He'd get such a kick out of you. He'd try to figure you out by interviewing you, then teasing you. Good luck, DOD.

You're getting Shaggier and Shaggier, and I love it! If you've got thick golden hair, rock it, son!!

I think I love this jazz club photo of you two best. I'm just happy that you live in a place that even HAS jazz clubs. I always knew, from the time you were a little boy and you got so excited when you smelled  

the "sweet French Fry air of town" 

that you'd find your place in a city. 

I can't wait to see you two for Thanksgiving. Your family awaits!

Happy birthday, darling Liam. I love you six hundred six sixty six!

Oh! and Someone has been waiting to say Happy Birfday to you!

                                                              It's Curtis. He's so patient. 

                                                                           OK go, Curtis. 

HADDY HADDY BIRFDAY WIAM!!

Wook! He miling!!