There is a widely held assumption that the power dynamic in a predator prey relationship is uni-directional. Predators are assumed to have power because they exercise it in clear and sometimes gruesome ways. I use the word gruesome for a human audience. A hawk might substitute the word practical, or
Long ago as settler colonialism crept west, and up the slopes of what would come to be known as the Sierra, unspeakable acts of violence occurred when those settlers came across people already living where the settlers wanted to live, or near where where they wanted to live, or where
daytime ghosts nighttime wanderers stalking, digging, playing, asleep ears twitching toward the nearest footfall, closed door, or the swelling silence of an engine switched off some of us are the harms you navigate historical constellations, points of bad luck your movements ward off their evil spirits even as you reclaim
What’s it like to be a pigeon living with Peregrines? I wonder if there are only older, healthier, and luckier pigeons downtown. Is that all we see? Do the young, sick, and unlucky eventually meet the talons of a falcon and have their feathers unceremoniously tossed to the wind.
A feather bound packet of muscle sinks through the air, powered by appetite and intent. There is a taught tether between the dove’s whistling panic and the dead set black-eyed gaze of the Merlin slipping through the blue. Alulae unfold, pocket knives in the wind, trimming the tether deftly
When thinking of a title for this space, a place of vulnerability and candor, of seeking and of remembrance, of experiments and testaments, I chose the name I used for many years to publish bird photos and their accompanying stories, Bird Light Wind. It’s a comfortable framing, a set