We’ve seen some half dozen merlins this winter, including a few right in Berkeley—most recently, one zoomed up to a lightpole at Delaware and Sacramento and sat there letting us look for a few minutes. Good thing there was no traffic to speak of, and a place to pull off the road. We’ve been seeing bluebirds regularly around the playing field at Derby and MLK Way, along with the usual revolving cast of crows and Canada geese and occasionally gulls. There’ve been at least 20 “wild” turkeys hanging around at the Gill Tract at Marin and San Pablo Avenue, fairly fearless, with that herd of geese (no ringers lately) and sometimes a deer or two.

The burrowing owl/s remain at the Marina, and we’ve seen redtails, white-tailed kite, and assorted waders and waterbirds there on just one or two strolls.

A gang of juncos has been eating us out of house and home at the suet feeder; this hasn’t put off the male Townsend’s warbler, the orange-crowned warbler, the pair of plain titmice (titmouses? titmouse and her consort), the chickadees, the Bewick’s wren; or the mob of American and lesser goldfinches, the resident California towhees, the hermit thrush, the white-crowned sparrows, the damned house-sparrows, robins (started singing late), and the occasional other visitor to everything else in the yard. The warblers, titmice, and chickadees have all visited the food-wells on the hummingbird feeder at least once each, too. Cocktails?

Joe just saw a (a??) cedar waxwing out back in the purple-leaf plum tree.

Which is beginning to bloom.

Wait: There went the whole waxwing flock, from the next-door redwood to the poplars over the back fence. We’ve been hearing woodpeckers and flickers too.

The Anna’s hummingbird in my hand there is the second of two-count ‘em-two female Anna’ses who came in the front door that day. I fetched the first one out of the cobwebs on top of the western front window, and this one from the cobwebs on the sill of the center front window, under the indoor bottletree. (Stop spinning, Mom; you always knew I wasn’t much of a housekeeper.) They do use spiderwebs in their nests. Both flew off looking uninjured, and I’ve been seeing at least one of them (hard to sort individuals when they’re moving) at the feeder since.

A hummer is an amazing bit of raw thrumming life to hold in one’s hand.

The California Academy of Sciences has a coconut octopus. You might have seen videos of this species toting coconut husks around by way of portable shelter.

Across the road from Rodeo Lagoon in the Marin Headlands; late December (and still not wet).

Either I’m fantastically lucky in this or we’re having a merlin irruption. They commonly winter here, but not in such large numbers that I see them by accident.

So far, so good.

Good start.

He chose instead to intercede for dogs:
“I’d rather have mad dogs than women any day.”
And, as God is kindly, so he has.

For what do mad dogs pray?
For death to ease their pain, for flesh to pass it on.
They’ll kill but they can’t eat. They don’t want meat.
They think, when they can think, of fear and rage,
Revulsion, gagging, blinding bleeding fever.

In rare lucid moments, they want water,
And so Saint Sithney has a well
to which mad dogs are brought, to drink and heal.

Did Sithney ask for this? A cruel joke:
A mad dog’s throat is closed to everything.
No one who needs to can drink from Sithney’s Well.

We see Saint Sithney, gilded, on his wall—
so this must be Heaven—
with howls and prayers of mad dogs in his ears.
They curse him and all living as they die,
their thirst unslaked,
their loyal souls caught fast
in dry and drowning throats,
their fangs locked foaming against the holy water.

How much of Heaven can a saint endure?

Caught in that unquenchable red thirst,
most virulent sin, most murderous half-life,
Saint Sithney might himself occasionally thirst
for the plangent virgin wishes of young girls:
Let him love me.
Sky-blue linen.
Roses, breezes, peace and plenty.
What a cool clear drink they’d conjure
for that holy soul.

The painting by the altar tells us nothing.

With centuries of rabies in his heart,
Saint Sithney can no longer swallow water.

Please DO NOT allow
children to ride the cow it
may be unsafe.
Also
please DO NOT tie pets to
the cow’s legs.

Thank you
The Pasta Shop
&
the cow.

Happens when we outlast our seasons.

—as they say in Britain.

This is down the hall from Julia Vinograd’s place.

Also, privilege.