Kensington Metropark

Tufted Titmouse

Tufted Titmouse

 

For early November, this was a fine sunny day in the 50s at Kensington Metropark, a 4,486 acre nature and recreation preserve about 30 miles west-northwest of Detroit, almost halfway to Lansing on I-96. 

Here’s what their publicity says, and it seems accurate to me (somebody had a vision, and the rest of us benefit): 

A scenic recreational facility that provides year-round fun for all ages. Its wooded hilly terrain surrounds beautiful Kent Lake. Attractions include the Splash 'n' Blast which offers two 240-foot twisted water slides and a water sprayground, Island Queen excursion boat, swimming, picnicking, canoeing, scenic drives, ice skating, a nature center with nature trails, a farm center, disc golf course and a 6,378 yard challenging 18 hole par 71 public golf course. Kensington is an official Michigan Wildlife Viewing Area.

I had the same experience at Kensington just about a year ago, including the birds. (Banjo52, November 28, 2010).

Chickadee

The titmice and chickadees don’t think twice about feeding from human hands, but the shy gold finches stayed in the treetops—so high, in fact, that I wasn’t sure what they were until I got home and cropped the photo for identification. 

Gold Finches

TWEET. e.e. cummings.

The Finch Boys have got their yellow back. Look out.



e.e. cummings:  I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.



With 40 million hits on YouTube now, Ukulele Boy, whom I posted last May and still love, could teach cummings a thing or two. Try him for a minute.

YouTube - I'm Yours(ukulele)

**

Gottfried Benn, "Last Spring"

The Fencing Master, 1900, Gary Melcher (American, , D.I.A.)
























Michigan's finches aren't this yellow yet, but . . .

here's a young guy working on it, trying for adulthood, testosterone, and brilliance.








And here's a spring poem by a (German) poet I’m not very familiar with, but Gottfried Benn might be worth further reading, for a number of reasons:

Last Spring by Gottfried Benn : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine]

Kudos once again to Poetry Foundation and Poetry Magazine for introducing us to such a variety of poetry and commentary on the art, craft, and history of verse.

In Wikipedia, the biographical info on Gottfried Benn is interesting, perhaps disturbing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Benn

It’s somewhat chilling to remember that a number of folks we still consider significant thinkers or artists were at least loosely, tentatively associated with Nazi-think: Benn, Nietzsche, Wagner, Heidegger, Otto Dix. How many more are there? What should we learn from it?

Left: Otto Dix, Self Portrait, 1912 (D.I.A.)

Apart from the sensationalism surrounding Nazi topics, consider this comment from Benn’s translator, Michael Hoffman: “the opposite of art, Benn always argued, is not nature, but pleasingness.”

Last Spring by Gottfried Benn : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine]

FINCHES AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

Okay, I’ve gone a couple of blogs without talk about birds, and you’ll yelp if I don’t keep you posted on finches. Sunday I bought two new net socks and another small feeder, the old kind that forces the bird to eat upside-down, which finches weirdly do.

Problem is, you see too much of their white rumps. What is the evolutionary advantage of a white rump, when the rest of you is electric yellow, a lit-up target for near-sighted cats?
Another factor about the upside down finch-prayer to gravity: they look a little dead, hanging there that-a-way.

Speaking of which, my window has felt the impact of two drunken pilot deaths in the last three weeks or so. I’m attributing that to teen or female drivers—because both little cadavers were olive, not yellow. (You thought you had me on misogyny charges, didn’t you?).

Here’s one more series of events. By far, the majority of my finches lately have been female (I thought). What’s up with that? Did the males go on bloody skirmishes against each other, concerning territory? What kind of irrational creature would do that to others of his species? Over a some air space? Over some dirt?

Then I half-remembered, and then confirmed in The Books, that juvenile finches look like the olive-ocher female, weenie or no weenie. So I’m apparently teaching a ton of finch teens to come back here, or never leave.

But shouldn't I then worry about inbreeding? And in a finch version of Deliverance, who would play the banjo?