I am a Birdman!

The beauty of "useless" knowledge

Hello, Birdwatchers!

This has been a rough month for our family! I’m slowly getting back on track with my writing, drawing, and publishing schedule. This post was supposed to go out on Tuesday evening, but it wasn’t ready. I’d rather be late than send you something rushed and substandard.

I have decided not to fire myself or even make a note for my personnel file. I’m working on being a kinder boss.

I wanted to let you know about a new feature for the newsletter. Every week I will be publishing a handful of haiku Robot comics, you can find them in a dedicated section of the newsletter. I will publish a double-length haiku Robot comic on Sundays that will be partially paywalled.

The birds I see as I meander in nature and around town each day are helping me remain mindful of the wonder that surrounds us.

And wonder is my lodestar for life and this newsletter!

the great blue heron
stares down a Muscovy duck
cleaning its feathers

I’ve always been a curious person, and for whatever reason my brain has always been sticky. When I was a teen, my friends and many adults would tease me about all my useless knowledge as I demolished them at trivia games.

I was especially good with pop culture and history.

I also never bought into the idea of “useless” knowledge. Every fact I learned could be connected to other facts and unlock a little more of the world for me. When I was younger, knowledge for knowledge’s sake felt like a worthy endeavor.

But now, at almost 48 years old, I see knowledge differently.

This past week, my favorite downtown pond was full of stunning birds. There was a majestic great blue heron and a wild variety of ducks.

I whipped out my phone and took a slew of reference photos for later comics. In the middle of one of my circuits around the pond, I was stopped in mid-haiku composition by a woman with a question. I had seen her and her friend across the pond admiring the heron.

“Are you a birdman?” She asked.

I paused and thought for a moment, and then laughed.

I replied, “I guess so.”

“Oh, good! Do you know what kind of bird that is?”

I did, of course, know. It was a great blue heron, only it had tucked its magnificent neck in, so it looked a bit like a hunchback.

“Will you tell my friend?” She pointed to her companion who was halfway across the pond in the direction I was already headed.

“Sure!”

As I left, the woman called out, “Helen! He knows about birds; he’ll tell you all about it!”

I do not know all about birds, I grumbled to myself.

Once I reached Helen, she also asked “Are you a birdman?”

I laughed again, and while wondering if this was a foreshadowing of my old age admitted to being a birdman.

I again identified the great blue heron. Helen asked me about the ducks. She knew about the mallard drake and asked me about the others. I happened to know all the duck species at the pond that day, and even a few fun facts.

The Muscovy duck was likely an escapee from a domestic pond as Muscovy ducks are popular pets and domesticated pond fowl, but do not live in the wild in Oregon.

What Helen thought were wood ducks were actually mallard hens, and you can tell by the small band of emerald green under their wings.

The dark, almost black bird was a Greater Scaup, or bluebill that migrates down in the winter from Alaska and Canada.

Helen was delighted by my facts and then pointed to the apartment building across the street.

“I live there and last week I saw a bald eagle fly right by my window. It was so beautiful! You seem like the right kind of person to tell that story to.”

I marveled at her encounter and the two of us parted. I couldn’t help but think, “I am a birdman!”

The limited knowledge I’ve gathered about birds would certainly be considered useless by many of the same people who derided all my pop culture and trivia knowledge when I was a teen.

But, knowing a handful of facts about birds had given me a connection to two strangers at the park, and maybe filled their day with a bit more wonder.

That is the treasure of any knowledge, you can share it with others and broaden someone else’s capacity to see the world differently.

More Haiku Comics

Zen time travler
is always content with now
whenever that is

death is a portal
to a more stable timeline
where time doesn't flow

3,500 Haiku Project

I’m a bit off the pace for my goal, but not irredeemably so. I’m working on catching up and should be back on track in the next ten days or so. I have written 201 haiku so far this year!

Here’s a link to my current status.

APBC

The Asynchronous Poetry Book Club is gearing up for our second book! Don’t worry if you missed the first book, Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon by Richard Wright. It’s an asynchronous club, and you can read, browse, and comment at any time. You can find all the APBC posts here.

Next, we will be reading, Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back by Alicia Cook. This unique book is not a collection of haiku but instead features two halves, where the second half is full of remixes and blackout poems based on the poems from the first half.

We will be covering the first 46 poems starting on Monday, February 5th, but again you can join in anytime!

Here are some links if you want to purchase a copy:

Amazon Link

Bookshop.org Link

Be the weird you want to see in the world!

Cheers,

Jason