A New Year’s Resolution From the Birds

"the world is not obliged to any person/with the pleasing of their hope" Maria Popova
"the world is not obliged to any person/with the pleasing of their hope" Maria Popova

January 5 is National Bird Day around the globe, a time to appreciate the diversity and beauty of birds, recognize their ecological value and draw attention to the threats they face.

We were surprised that Canada didn’t have a national bird until 2016. Can you guess what it is? The Common Loon? Canada Goose? Black-Capped Chickadee?

Those three were considered, but from our country’s 450 species of birds, Canadian Geographic picked the Gray Jay. (Whiskey Jacks we called them in Alberta.)

The percentage of people in Canada who have bird feeders or bird houses in their back yards also surprised us. I’d have guessed 10%; your estimate? (It’s 25% according to StatsCan’s 2017 survey.)

Newfoundland has provided Magellan and me with the most birding fun, but since we’ve already told you about the gannets at Cape St. Mary’s and the puffins at Elliston, today our story is about birding on Menorca, an island smaller than the city of Calgary—but with more than 200 species of birds. People travel from all over the world to see certain species, like the Bee Eaters.

Menorca’s most important area for birding is the National Park of S’Albufera des Grau. As the island’s most significant wetland (Albufera translates to wetland), its saltwater lagoon, ponds and old salt pans are home to herons, egrets, pintails, grebes, cormorants, coots, ospreys and sandpipers.

“A golden reflection/of a larger life/in the pure stream/of the possible” Maria Popova
 

We stayed in Es Grau, nicknamed “the town of dead fishermen” because of its declining population (2023: 172 people.)

And where the fish are declining, so are their feathered predators.

Our best birdwatching experience was sunset at Sa Gola. Although a birder we met told us it was unusual to spot herons here, a Grey Heron charmed us until the sun’s erubescence faded to a violet darkness.

Saturday morning, we hiked two birding trails: Santa Madrona, and Cala Llimpa. While Magellan’s app identified the nearby singsongs of goldfinches, nightingales and blackbirds, the birds themselves remained reclusive.

It was disappointing frankly, all that walking, lugging our tripod and packing in our big lens yet seeing so few birds.

Serendipitously, the day before I started this story, into my mailbox arrived Maria Popova’s post: “Birds, Loves, and Obscure Sorrows: The Best of the Marginalian 2024.”

(Photo: An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days by Maria Popova)

As a gift to her friends for her fortieth birthday, Maria created a deck of cards of birds and words, a sort of “avian anti-tarot” for making sense of the present world. Every night, she chose a single bird from books like Audubon’s Birds of America and John and Elizabeth Gould’s Birds of Europe and wrote some text about it. In the morning, she revised and refined her night phrases.

Birds began populating my own dreams. A great blue heron glided across the sky of my mind, slow and prehistoric, carrying the world on her back… Each bird surprised me with the divination it brought. I didn’t feel like I was writing these — they were writing me. A kind of almanac was emerging — guidance for uncertain days.

When she had completed forty cards, she sent them off to a printer and gave them to her friends.

“But I couldn’t stop,” she writes. “The practice had become a metronome of my days. The birds kept coming, kept speaking.”

In May this year, Canada’s own McNally Robinson will publish An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days, Maria’s gorgeous poetic collages, “a consolation, inspiration, and assurance for the daily perplexity of living.”

(Photo: An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days by Maria Popova)

Maria’s bird divinations taught us a lesson: take pleasure in the present—a New Year’s Resolution for 2025—but you know us; at the same time, we’re going to relish in the possibilities just around the next corner…

Navigation

Popova, Maria. An Almanac of Birds: 100 Divinations for Uncertain Days. McNally Jackson Books. May 13, 2025. “Presented as a deck of cards tucked into book-safe in the style of a 19th-century ornithology tome, An Almanac of Birds gathers one hundred of these poetic collages for readers to savor and shuffle into relevance to their own lives, offering consolation, inspiration, and assurance for the daily perplexity of living.” Pre-order at your favourite bookstore or be patient and accept that you have to wait until May.

Menorca Walking Birds In Menorca, Javier Méndez Chavero is the nature guide you want in Menorca. Here’s his Facebook page, too.

9 Responses

  1. Interesting story and kind of falls in line with our annual Torch River Bird and Mamal annual count up here on the Torch River, an annual affair that keeps us abreast of the local birds and animals that frequent our area of Saskatchewan. Kind of a bonus was 3 Linx’ cats that I was expecting as the hare population was explosive last fall and the cats did not disappoint, we normally see maybe one on game cameras so the triplet display was most encouraging, especially to see them live and not on camera.
    Hope 2025 continues in this manner by exceeding our viewing pleasure.
    Cheers,

    1. Lucky you! A reason January 5 was selected for National Bird Day is because in many places, including you guys up at the Torch, do bird counting during the first week of January. Good for you for volunteering.

  2. Yes, I had to look that word up too! It conjured up memories of a variety of sunsets – Hawaiian and our Alberta prairie sunsets.
    I love Maria’s cards of birds and divinations and can’t wait to pass them around at a spring party to stimulate interesting conversations~

  3. If ever I manage at a dinner party to impress someone with a little known “tidbit” or a rarely used but entirely elegant adjective … “erubescence” had to look that up!!👀🤣 … it will be entirely this blog’s influence on me!!
    Plus, y’know …your images are fantastic👌🤩🌟

    1. Isn’t it a lovely word? I came across it for the first time last month–it may have been in The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway or the novel Loved and Missed –and had to look it up, too. Although when you think about it, that syllable rube should have enlightened us.

  4. Well we enjoy the birds when in Mexico, and have feeders and hummingbird feeders at home, in Victoria. Love watching the suet with 15-20 small bush tits on the suet..amazing , could watch them all day long! thanks, Happy bird day..PS. I always thought Canada national bird was the Canada Goose, but was reminded that the five dollar bill had a Whiskey Jack on it, guessing introducing it as the national bird..Funny! Have a great day, adios from Mexico..
    Heather

    1. Apparently the “rush” to name a national bird coincided with the country’s upcoming 150th anniversary in 2017. Enjoy the warmth of Mexico, great place to start 2025.

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