Mallard

There is a duck sanctuary I contacted in order to try and save a mallard.  Matthew returned my phone call and patiently talked through the steps I could take for the rescue.  It was nighttime.  The next day I could not find the injured mallard on the lake or around it.  Chances are not good that the mallard has survived the freezing cold.  I painted this mallard.  Here is the sanctuary's link:
http://www.michiganduckrescueandsanctuary.com/

Mallard, with thanks to various photographers, especially S. Javorsky

Does all art, no matter how small the painting, try to lift us out toward resurrection?

Lions, Tigers, Bears, and Elephants

We went to the Wild Animal Sanctuary last week.  Please go there, to the website that is (click on the name).  For the animals, more than 800 acres now are set aside as a haven--safe, vast, restorative.  Lions, tigers, bears, mountain lions, bobcats, foxes, sheep, llamas, birds, a camel, and all:  we viewed them from up high so as to reduce their stress.  After bad lives, good people are helping them.

The same week I read about a rangers-and-armed forces, anti-poaching-and-community strengthening brigade in Mali for the protection of elephants.  Sgt. Djibril Sangare, a ranger with the brigade, said he has learned how to stay calm under the constant threat of attack, finding strength in the mission.  Sgt. Sangare said, "The work, it is love."
(See the New York Times, October 29, International, p. 8)

Mountain Lion sighting

Our government confirmed a mountain lion sighting: June 21 in Bath township.  We used to have mountain lions in Michigan.  We've had some sightings in the past few years, but not this far south.  The land is NE of Lansing.

Goldfinch

Male Goldfinch

They feed on the thistle seeds, abundant here now.  High, crooning, arching, summoning short songs.  Delightful.  This small painting of a Goldfinch is going down to Indianapolis next week. The birds will also be going south as soon as the thistles give up all, and they will go farther south than Indianapolis. They fly as far as Florida.  Will their feeding places be recovered there after Hurricane Irma?

Refugee

sketch of Tamba

This is probably Tamba, the more dominant of the two males.  Jasiri was nearby.  They are Southern White Rhinoceroses, now living at the Detroit Zoo.  Tamba in Swahili means "strut proudly," Jasiri means "courageous."  Tamba was getting his legs massaged with a lineament, from the fetlocks down, by his zookeeper caretaker when I was there. With such bodyweight loaded onto their legs, Rhinos challenge zoos to replicate a soft/hard mix for their pen's floor upon which they walk around every day.  (And of course the floor must be maintained/cleaned up every day.  Gosh.)

I think Detroit Zoo is doing a good job.  Probably really good.  You can see and even think about helping with the Rhinos at the Detroit Zoo here:  https://detroitzoo.org/rhinos/

Watching the Rhinos, I felt like the world was there, in the pen with me.  Big world made to be this: creatures in the same space trying to enjoy the space together.  This is our challenge in this century isn't it:  making a good home for us All:  refugees, caretakers, onlookers, ignorers, All.

Mascot extraordinaire

A mascot can really add:  lift a team, event, occasion, for All.  Look at Jetta here!

Jetta with Team Vihti

Here is a description of wonderful Jetta by Andrew Keh, writing from Hyrynsalmi, Finland:

"Jetta is a stuffed badger ensconced in a bird cage.  She acts as a mascot of sorts for a team of 12 friends who make the seven-hour drive each year from Vihti, near Helsinki, for the competition.  They bought the doll seven years ago from a junk store at a highway rest stop, and her fame around the swamp has grown ever since.  A couple of years ago, she was interviewed by a local newspaper."

The competition referred to is the 20th annual Swamp Soccer World Championships.  Here is a link:   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/sports/finland-has-a-sports-screw-loose.html

wakashu

 Mallard pair

Canada goose

Here are a pair of mallards and a Canada goose.  We saw them together last year, well into winter, and then again as soon as the lake thawed in February.  The goose concerned me.  Geese are very social; this one did not mix with other geese.

There is an exhibit at the Japan Society in New York City, "A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints," in which many wakashu are depicted, young males who in Edo-period Japan are considered the height of beauty.  For a short time only, after puberty, wakashu permissibly could have intimacy with males or females who sought them out.  And so I thought of our "lone" goose.  Maybe he hadn't had a late molt last year, or a set-back or a loss.  Maybe this goose simply liked the company of ducks, or was trying out the company of ducks.  And the ducks liked him well enough.  They shared a short time of species- if not gender-mix.

This week we have seen groups of odd-numbered geese, often 5, sometimes 3.  We now think our lone goose is mixing with other geese.  Whatever!

Power

I saw this field of winter cover crop, with a line of thaw, and some remnant of corn stubble. Thousands of rye seedlings -> one powerful color.

Sister Mary and I walked Saturday through a savanna near the Kankakee River watershed.  The ground there is already softening.  These clumps of wintered grass dotted a patch of ground between the savanna and a railroad bed.  They are as powerful as stumps, little plant mammoths.

Rhinoceroses are big, the second largest land mammal after elephants. They have very small eyes, and their eyesight is poor; still, no one says they are not powerful.  There are two southern white rhinos at the Detroit Zoo.  Will I ever see them as they are?

I put a rhino in the treeline of the rye field sketch.  If we live with them well, this gives power, yes?

Nuthatch signals new year

This Red-breasted Nuthatch did not give up his place at the feeder while I made noises nearby, amazing bird.  During the day I noticed a lot of bird activity: a Flicker had returned, not seen since October, and was eating ants in the grass.  Canadian geese had returned, and a pair of mallards flew over the thawing lake.  Many Tufted Titmouses were around for the first time this year.  All were busy and making fine trills and tweets, Americans all.

I've returned to Ai-jane because the birds prompt me to do what I do, busily, not giving up, with tweet-song-joy.