HOMAGE TO AN ALL AMERICAN BIRD: The American Oystercatcher

AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER: ALL AMERICAN BIRD (art by Hallelujah Truth based on photos by Jen Hilburn)

HALLELUJAH to the American OysterCatcher in recognition of its bright, oblong orange bill, circular red-rimmed eyes, striking black and white feathers, and long salmon-colored legs. Citizens of the United States take note of this All-American bird that spends its 30-40 year life-span traversing our eastern coastline from Maine to Florida. This bird may be flying into extinction.

At the end of July 2011, I was lucky enough to see this “patriot” bird in its natural habitat. I left the city streets and congested interstate of the Atlanta Metropolitan area, with my Chiboogamoo to voyage out to St. Catherines, a barrier island along the Georgia coast. While Chiboogamoo was examining gopher tortoise burrows, I was fortunate enough to be taken out on a boat to monitor the local American oystercatchers. 

ST. CATHERINES AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER MONITORING: Jen Hilburn, ornithologist at St. Catherines, waits while Rachel shows me what a "scrape" nest looks like on this "rake," a place where American oystercatchers dig a shallow depression in the oyster shells to lay their eggs. You can see how vulnerable a ground nest would be to tides, wakes from boats, and sea storm surge.

Along with Jen Hilburn, the island ornithologist, and her assistant, Rachel Harris, we visited three locations: Grass Island, Cedar Flat, and Condo Corner. Condo Corner received its funny name from Jen because of the way three pairs of oystercatchers nested in a row this past season. At the time I visited these nesting sights, the breeding pairs had already broken up and were moving about the St. Catherines area. We saw one mom and dad with their fledgling at Condo Corner. When the tide is high and their food sources like oysters, bivalves, lettered olives, and moon snails are submerged, Jen explained to me, they have nothing to do but lounge around.

GRASS ISLAND: Another American oystercatcher nesting site. Vulnerable?

LOUNGING AROUND: An American oystercatcher pair and their fledgling hanging out until the tide goes down and they can forage for food.

You might ask why this magnificent bird is dying out. Well, sadly, its enemies are many. Global warming and its resulting sea level rise is causing shorelines and these small sanctuaries of land to disappear under water. These ground nesters are then left without a place to “scrape” a shallow nest into sand or oyster shells. Predators also take their toll on these easily accessible ground nests. Hungry and plentiful raccoons, minks, feral hogs, ghost crabs and other avians eat both eggs and baby birds.

SEE THE SCRAPE NEST?: Rachel Harris stands next to the scrape nests that are barely visible except to the expert eye.

Added to these alarming consequences of sea level rise and animal predation is human development. People are building homes and hotels in places that used to provide sanctuaries for American oystercatchers to nest. In addition to having fewer places to nest, when these birds do make their ground nests on the remaining undeveloped shorelines, they are inadvertently disrupted. Unwittingly boats and cars disturb these almost invisible nests. If the nests escape human destruction, they may not survive the dogs that accompany the people.

LIFE-CYCLE OF THE AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER

These causes that prevent the American oystercatcher from successfully producing young are persistent. The end result is that the disruptions in their life-cycle is that this stately American bird will cease to exist. Scientists are doing what they can to try to help this bird survive.

For four years now, Jen has monitored the nesting habitats of the American Oystercatcher on St. Catherines and along the intercoastal water way, counting nesting pairs, incubating eggs, and banding fledglings and any adult that is not nesting. The more birds are banded, Jen told me, the more you can learn about the pairs and their breeding habits.  For two of these four years, she has participated in the American Oystercatcher Working Group, a nationwide organization, which is keeping count of all American oystercatchers along the eastern coast and doing what they can to assist their longevity.

But the success at St. Catherines is dismal despite their efforts. Just look at the statistics from the 2011 breeding season. Jen and Rachel observed 22 nesting pairs. They incubated eggs from 50% of these nests because so many eggs left in the nests are predated or washed away by the sea. If I understood them correctly, from their efforts, none succeeded in making it to the stage where it could “fledge” or fly away. Only one pair of American oystercatchers on St. Catherines succeeded in producing one fledging naturally. A species can not continue if it cannot reproduce more abundantly.

LET THERE BE BABIES!

How noble it is of these naturalists to perpetuate life, to study life, and to honor life. Hallelujah for avians and the ornithologists who study and assist them. Hallelujah for St. Catherines, an island sanctuary for the American oystercatcher, a beautiful of the United States’ eastern shores!

JEN HILBURN and RUTH SCHOWALTER

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I am so thankful to my Chiboogamoo! His paleontological interests challenge me to grow. It is by accompanying him on his scientific investigations that I broaden my own interests in this bountiful and rich EARTH. Jen Hilburn is an inspiration! How fortunate is St. Catherines to employ this woman who breathes life into every action she takes! She infuses her love into everyone who willingly steps into her intellectual path! No one is left unimpacted by this very force of nature and intelligence. Jen Hilburn wants “buy in” to saving this earth. She is all SCIENTIST in her investigations. She is all ARTIST in embrace of others and extension of knowledge. Halleljuah! Thank you Rachel Harris for being so knowledgeable, patient, and kind when answering my questions.

ABOUT MY PAINTINGS IN THIS BLOG: Many of you might already know that I call myself a visionary painter because I rely on an inner feeling or "eye" to guide me as I do my work. As a SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM, I have been journeying in new directions artistically. Because I adore NATURE and have the good fortune to travel with my brilliant paleontologist husband on his forays to study modern and ancient ichnology (traces), I have welcomed the richness of NATURE  pervading my SPIRIT. I absorb, think, feel, wait, contemplate, and yes--draw without judgment. The drawings you see on this blog resulted as a process of daily meditation. The "new" aspect of this work was for me to use a specific outside stimulus like a photograph to translate inward. If I had a goal or ambition in these works, it was to express my relationship to the American oystercatcher. You see, I BELIEVE that the process of making ART connects us to the world and through that process we begin to "OWN" our role in taking care of MOTHER EARTH. We "buy in" as Jen Hilburn might say. HALLELUJAH FELLOW PILGRIM!

SOUL BLOG with Hallelujah about your response to the all-American bird, the American Oyster Catcher! Take a moment to investigate the SCIENTIST and ARTIST in you. What do you know? What do you love? What action can you take today to sustain this awesome EARTH that we inhabit?

PRAYER FOR THE AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER: Hope springs eternal and it is necessary to keep a positive attitude when scientific facts predict that the American oystercatcher will die out as a species and the ornithologists are measuring how long it will take even though they have made efforts to preserve this beautiful American bird. 

ETERNAL SACRED IMAGES: WE FIND OURSELVES IN NATURE

Hallelujah Pilgrims! My LOVE of NATURE often startles me.  Living on the edge of Atlanta, a city populated by five million humans, I find myself incredibly challenged to HONOR MYSELF in relationship to this great ancient altar: NATURE. Within all that is vegetative and animal is the fabric of bouncing molecular energy. And from this ENERGY flows ETERNAL SACRED IMAGES. But where to FIND this ENERGY and EXPERIENCE these IMAGES?

 In our Decatur townhome, Chiboogamoo and I live amidst concrete roads, pathways, and walls with only north facing windows. Within our shadowy walled enclosure, we harbor parsley plants for the sheer pleasure of seducing butterflies to enter our lives. Our birdfeeders house “peppered” sunflower seeds to attract the local finches and occasional woodpeckers to our windows and successfully discourage the squirrels who visit everyday to shred calcium from the cow’s skull I have hanging on the east garden wall. How my HEART BURST with WONDER this past June when I witnessed baby praying mantises dispersing across the wall above our front door!

 For me, this HEART BURSTING WONDER is magnified a hundred fold when I am visiting along the Georgia coast on one of its numerous barrier islands—Cumberland, Sapelo, Ossabaw, Little St. Simons, and St Catherines—to name a few. These slender finger like islands built from accruing and eroding sands for almost 50,000 years are fortresses of ancient maritime forests towering behind oozing muddy marshes which release their rich organics out into the ocean’s eternal ebb and flow. ENERGY VIBRATES HERE.

(How magical these Georgia barrier islands are. On Christmas Eve 2008, I saw this photograph of a fish crow on a young buck's back displayed on Royce Hayes' fridge in his home on the island of St. Catherine and knew I had to paint it! How surprised I was when he as the island manager picked up the phone and called the island's ornithologist, Jen Hilburn, and asked her to make me a copy! It appeared on our cabin's doorstep that afternoon. Island hospitality!)

I must say here that I am knowledgeable of these Georgia Golden Isles because of my Chiboogamoo.  As he nears the completion of his book, “Life Traces of the Georgia Coast,” we marvel at the beauty that exists a 200-mile drive and ferry ride from our townhome front door. His research and documentation of the thriving wildlife on these everchanging and moving islands has brought us into the caring hospitality of island naturalists such as Jim Bitler, John Crawford, Jen Hilburn, Scott Coleman, and Carol Ruckdeschel.

(Here I am with my Chiboogamoo on Cumberland. Vernon J. Henry and Carol Ruckdeschel took us there to look at a Pleistocene outcrop in December 2008.)

 My sweetheart and brilliant husband Chiboogamoo has had me accompany him on these island adventures as his worthy assistant and sincere LOVER of NATURE. Hallelujah! HALLELUJAH! H A L L E L U J A H ! ! ! Zeroing in on my AUTHENTICITY, I greet all that I see and all of those that I meet as COLLABORATORS in my PILGRIMAGE, my quest to find and document the ETERNAL SACRED IMAGES. The beaches, marshes, forests, and ponds THRIVE with LIFE. Most recently, Gale Bishop has been posting daily photos from St Catherines as baby turtles emerge from their deep sandy nests along the dunes into the endless moving sea—an eternal cycle of life, one for the sea turtles that has been going on for more than 100 million years.

Last week in the middle of September, Carol Ruckdeschel, a naturalist living on Cumberland, was kind enough to send me some images of the black vultures that are part of her daily environment on this southern most Georgia barrier island.  I had asked her for “island” stories in my absence of experiencing island NATURE directly for the past six months. These vulture photos were her response, and they were ENOUGH. Carol’s portrait of a vulture spoke to me profoundly and deeply. I had to paint this greatly misaligned bird, despised by humans because of its carrion feeding ways, in the way that Carol had captured it.

I titled my portrait, “I AM HERE.” I use the verb “to be” in present tense to address the simultaneous presence of LIFE and DEATH that the vulture represents to me. While being very much alive and experiencing hunger, parenthood, the breeze through pine trees, this bird also reminds me that I one day will be carrion but long after its own demise. I AM HERE. Yes, be present to THE NOW. I have a goal in MY PILGRIMAGE, my creative odyssey: to greet TRUTH with a HALLELUJAH! Hence my name—Hallelujah Truth. Hallelujah Black Vulture! Hallelujah NATURE!

I began this blog entry with the question as to how to find and experience the ENERGY of these ETERNAL SACRED IMAGES found in NATURE. My answer is this:

 Fellow Pilgrims, follow your intuition, listening to what you already know. Our spiritual paths are often a rediscovering of what we already know deeply within ourselves. Honor nature and see how its life reflects back your interior.

 This carrion eating bird is essentially me, as much as a sea turtle or American oyster catcher! I AM HERE. YOU ARE HERE. WE ARE NATURE! Hallelujah! 

(I painted this image for Scott Coleman, who is the naturalist on Little St. Simons. He was kind enough to meet us on a cold Saturday morning in March 2010 and take Chiboogamoo and me for our very first time to see this jewel of a Georgia barrier island. His office is located in an old home sitting on the marsh, where Scott frequently watches otters frolicking. Viewers have responding to this image positively. Is it because of how I have made these creatures look very human like?)

HALLELUJAH--WE'RE NOT ALONE!

My vision is that we are not alone on our journeys. This image originated from talking with Jen Hilburn, the ornithologist on St Catherines, a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. 

In my desire to connect my art with my love of the environment, I urged her to tell me about her conservation work on the island. She told me about the plight of the American Oyster Catcher (AMOY), a beautiful black and white, orange billed migratory bird. 

It is no longer reproducing at a rate to sustain itself. Over time, unless we humans can help the AMOY, it will die out. Jen, like other ornithologists, are taking action to help this bird reproduce such as building artificial sand bars so it can build its ground nests and incubating eggs until they hatch.

When Jen saw my images of the AMOY with the guardian angels, she talked to me about being a scientist. Scientists do what they can. They are not angels, she said. When the scientists' actions fail, the birds will die. We can remain hopeful, and we can remain vigilant. Action must be taken. She was very serious.

I understood Jen. She wants all of us to take action to do what we can for the Earth that we live on. We shouldn't anticipate miracles. If all of us were more like Jen, the Earth would be a better place. We are not alone on our journey. I know that there are more people like Jen. And all the time, more of us are learning.

Let me know what you think about my painting. Even more important, tell me what you are doing to take care of the Earth? Can all of us be scientific guardian angels? That's Coffee With Hallelujah! Good night!