What these birds remind me of

 

Since we moved here I have been watching the seagulls flying outside our windows with great pleasure. This in addition to all the delightful and more comical encounters with them at the fish markets, along the boulevards, and of course at the beach. But from our windows they are at their most elegant, and to my great surprise remind me of the bald eagles we watched so eagerly from the windows of our Saint Minneapolis apartment.

Even to me it seems absurd that a seagull could remind me so regularly of a bald eagle. 

Check out this at least half fake picture I made:

Not much to it, eh? The eagle is surely twice the size. He is fearsome, dense, muscular, and imperious. Could there be two such different birds?

And yet maybe our way in is that dead fish they are both happily eating. These birds are, for all their vast differences, primarily waterside scavengers. And maybe that is what gives them some kind of similar quality out my windows across continents. The way they fly is astonishingly similar. Sure, in close quarters the seagull is far more active, ridiculous, and scrappy. The eagle is economical and careful about its energy. But out my window it is the same exact kind of imperious soaring they partake of, the same steady wings, and the same careful, slightly joyous use of the wind. And though in our picture here they look wildly different, in the air somehow they seem nearly the same size, with the smaller seagull's wings sprawling richly out, and its head and sometimes tail flashing white in the sky, dark and light, just like the eagle. They're both magnificent to watch as they glide with the barest touch of effort as they look about for...  nice... dead... things.

As we got towards Summer here another bird, apparently in for Spring and Summer from Africa, came to flood the skies. I don't think I saw a single one of them until maybe May? The air is rarely free of them now as, unlike the sometimes economical seagull, and the always careful eagle, these birds live most of their life on the wing. Their's is a life in the air nearly like fish in water. These are the swifts, and while I love watching them wheel about, they also evoke in me a strange analogy. These swifts curiously remind me of... mosquitoes.

Well, that seems even more inexplicable, but I have a guess for why they might seem alike. The swifts are feeding on insects in the air all day, and so why wouldn't they fly a bit like them, in their irregular patterns, in order to catch them? It at least seems possible to me. And maybe it's them we have to thank for how really minimal the irritating insects have been in this city.

But no matter, the truth is, mosquito-like or not, I am thankful to all these animals, nearly all birds, because this city life has its price to pay. The wilds can drift far away, and the rarity of the connection to that non anthropocene world becomes ever more precious. I am hardly likely to scoff at even the scrabbling pigeons here, where people seem to fill up every space in every way. Every single thing scudding across our hot skies is its own small piece of relief.

Even seeing a dead rat in the street, while evoking its touch of horror, also, like I would imagine it would for a seagull or an eagle, brings me a touch of delight. The world breathes in and out. I need every reminder I can get.

More seagulls, more liberties

 

Having excitedly shown some lively seagull pictures the other day, keeping faithful to the real world, I am ready to move on. It's not that these pictures today are fake, or all AI generated, it's just that they take a wider variety of liberties.

These are still mostly from photographs taken during a visit to the huge six day a week market here, called The Liberation Market. For instance, the moon in one of these pictures is real, though it's probably been made bigger. The seagulls are real... sometimes. The building is as is. If all that's important to you, I understand. I like to know what's real and what's not too! It's just, what's real is never what we think, is it?, and the old truth pointer keeps moving like crazy, and sometimes one just has to throw one's hands up.

It's not a pleasant realization but...

The truth is drunk.

Seagulls and rejoining the city

 

I recently resolved that it's probably simpler and better suited to my overwhelming coughing illness to set aside some of my more visual projects, like drawing and photography. Sitting at home for larger portions of the day made me more inward, and perhaps less inspired to comment so much, visually or otherwise, on the thriving city all around me. Yesterday I could hardly even imagine what I might want to photograph, or what kind of thing I could show you about this city that I haven't shown twice already.

But I am slowly getting better. And today, finding myself wandering the city with at least a little more energy, I found myself once again struck by idiosyncratic moments of interest and loveliness. And for the first time in a week or two the city felt like a canvas again, an expression of my heart, or a story to share with you.

We were over at the Liberation Market today, and passing by the fish selling area, and seeing the back of the old Gare de Sud train station, which I find delightfully lovely even if tragically it is not a train station anymore, I couldn't resist pulling out my camera. It wasn't just the thrilling colors of the day, the brilliant design of the back of the old station's facade, but there was the sheer liveliness of the seagulls too. Their comically grand biology was such a charming augment to the colorful human designs. So I did what I could with the two elements together.

And then, as one fervently hopes when one is photographing, luck struck!

I am ever keen to capture the seagulls here in flight, but I am rarely successful. But for once my timing was excellent and, well, like I said, lucky.

This is expressed mostly in two photographs. I experimented with ai and with turning up the volume on some of my pictures of this scene, but I am a little too proud of these two pictures below to muddy the waters with a lot of fakery. For today I will leave my pictures mainly as they were, the two that were great surprises to me: my first real successes with seagulls in flight (or almost in flight). Yes, I cooked the clarity and color as I would in any edits of pictures, but these are basically my as is pictures taken on the scene as it played out:

The seagull conundrum

 

Holy crap. These seagulls are amazing.

I don't think there is a better bird for watching flying. I mean, around here, there's not much else. Am I going to watch the pigeons fly?

Yes, I am going to watch the pigeons fly! They're a lot of fun too, darting, quick, and surprisingly graceful. And if I'm lucky enough to run into a flock of starlings? It is absolutely mesmerizing! But I haven't seen starlings around here in more than a month. And pigeons are a little scruffy. Beyond that, there's the occasional crow or songbird, and none of them here are much about aerial acrobatics. 

But seagulls?

They are the size of bald eagles. But seagulls look like something stiff and light that you could pick up if you wanted. And to compare their flying abilities to any other bird would be absurd. It's not quite that they look like they're doing it for fun exactly. It's just that they're so good at it. There are so many of these loud scavenging desperate birds around, and they can be obnoxious and it can be easy to take them for granted... but... they are so fucking good at flying. And the more you watch them the more you understand how good they are, their sheer complete understanding. Their mastery touches on art. They are beyond pride. And though full of all the craven natures and practicalities of living creatures, sometimes even moreso than many other animals, seagulls nevertheless slip beyond everything when they fly. It's not practical, or joyous, or thrilling exactly. Too pure to contain anything other than flying, it's that they are so good they think nothing of it. They are so good it just devolves down to... magic.

I painted one. I enjoyed drawing the stones of our beaches here about as much as I enjoy walking on those stones.

Maybe for the subject of this missive the seagull should have been flying?

But I am a mere mortal. How could I do that justice?

For the birds

 

There aren't a lot of animals in this city, so thank god for the birds. I have yet to see a mere squirrel and even the wee bugs are rare. Maybe the ocean, its own teeming wilderness, is full of creatures, but they keep their own counsel, not be heard from above the waves.

I live above the waves.

But there are birds. Not many varieties, and they run a bit squidgy around the edges sometimes, but there are plenty of them. The pigeons are near everywhere, and though I am familiar with the phrase "Rats with wings" I do not find rats without charm in the right context anyway, and I have yet to find any pigeon who is not a perfectly delightful neighbor. Less common are the starlings, but in their formations they are so thrilling one is inclined to drop everything and get hypnotized by their flight for awhile. There's some kind of finch, the black and white songbird, I'll get their names down eventually, and a couple others I've seen show up rarely. But for the greatest presence of all, up in the air, and as unmissable as the pigeons, are the seagulls. 

They're like crows, but with a far less sophisticated sense of humor.

I'm not even sure it is a sense of humor!

But, boy, can they fly!

A bit after dawn this morning they were out tossing about the sky for fun among the nearby buildings. I tried to take some pictures of them, moved by their grace and fecundity. The pictures really didn't come out, but in a telling sort of way. And it is too rare that I show you my completely raw photographs. I don't want you to think my world is perfect! 

So here are some seagulls:

forty-six

 

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Yesterday I showed you a highly zoomed in picture of a bald eagle that I took recently from inside my apartment. This is a pretty fancy way to do one's wildlife photography. Very... comfortable. It put me in mind of an older picture taken in an obviously different season, also from out the window of my apartment, of an owl. This is very cleaned up with AI, let's say a three on the scale to ten, which means, for those of you scoring at home, that this is definitely the owl as it was, and all the trees are in the right places, but if the owl's sister were to look at the picture she might say "I don't know, it looks like him, but it also sort of doesn't? Something about the ears or forehead?".

Although the owl's sister might say "Who?" not even recognizing her own owl brother! In which case this would be an alteration level of at least five out of ten.

Or it might possibly just reflect on an owl being an owl.

twenty-eight

 

Clerkmanifesto is going context free for 100 days!

While I retire from 31 years at the Roseville Library, sell nearly everything I own, fly with my darling wife to Japan for 40 days, and then move together to France to start to build a life there, I present a less explained clerkmanifesto, a clerkmanifesto of snapshots and time travel. Below you may see old posts without introduction from my 4,750 post collection. You may see random photos, brand new or years old. I may write a passage about Japan as if of course you know I'm in Japan, I may make a simple observation or joke, but whatever it is, I won't be explaining it. You'll have to take it as it comes.

For more context you are welcome to read this longer introduction.

And if this is all too confusing I welcome you to investigate our thousands of fully explained historic posts from the past 12 years, though I'll be the first to admit, hours later, you may still come away a little confused.

Here, however it works, is what clerkmanifesto has for you today:

Three pictures of a bird taken from where I sit at my computer.

As simple as that. 

I changed the neighbors' balcony wall to a branch, and used all kinds of magics, but, in the end, it is that bird, who stood there for a minute or two, and then flew away.