Lynn Haupt - The Urban Bestiary

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Copyright 2013 by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Illustrations by Tracie Noles-Ross

Cover design by Julianna Lee

Cover art by Olaf Hajek

Cover 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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First ebook edition: September 2013

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ISBN 978-0-316-25078-8

Crow Planet

Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent

Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds

F OR MY SISTER, K ELLY

A HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER
WHO HAS INSPIRED THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS
WITH HER LOVE OF NATURE

T hough I always like to write outdoors, I made it a point with this book in particular to work outside whenever possible, to immerse myself in the world I was writing about. This meant constant interruptionscrows alerting me to the presence of a sharp-shinned hawk, bugs in my hair, squirrels that required chasing before they ate every last cherry on the tree. And from these interruptions came observations and ideas that needed to be in the booknot in the chapter I was working on, but somewhere else altogether. I would pause, and then quilt the new thoughts into my notes.

Writing outdoors also meant a fair bit of thermoregulation. I commonly needed another sweater, or more shade, or, since I write in Seattle, a big umbrella. In the cooler months, I often built a fire in the backyard fire pit, extending the season of the outdoor writing studio (and providing the opportunity to fortify myself with the perfect lunch: smores). Though it wasnt my initial intent, I believe all of this helped to deepen my empathy with the creatures in my neighborhood, most of whom contrive some kind of shelter but none of whom (excepting the pair of squirrels that have taken up in my attic cornice) have access to anything as stalwart as my own heated wooden house. The most disconcerting thing about writing the bestiary in this manner was that it completely upset my normal writing process, which is to write a chapter, tidy it up, write another. This book seemed to me entirely haphazard, with all the chapters being written at pretty much the same time. This offended my sense of calm order and made me worry that in all of these disheveled words there would never be a book at all. But I started to realize that this rangy form mimicked its subject: the ambling, lateral knowledge of the wildunfolding constantly, simultaneously, and without any regard at all for my own insistence on what is best for it or for me.

One of the things that emerged from my unorthodox writing studio was a kind of sub-bestiary, what I think of as the Bestiarys Bestiarya list of animals that I observed while writing these pages. And not the animals I saw over the course of time during which I worked on the book or sighted while camping or hiking or birding, but the animals I spotted while actually putting pen to paper, or fingers to laptop, and without getting up from my desk at the window/patch of grass/perch on a cozy tree limb in my backyard or urban park. I love that these animals reflect both the typical urban generalists (eastern gray squirrel, American robin) and those particular to my place here in Seattle, with park benches along the Puget Sound shoreline (Pacific harbor seal, osprey). I list them here in part to acknowledge with gratitude the role they played in this project by way of inspiration and holy distraction, and because I hope that they may inspire others to create their own working bestiariesan increased attentiveness to the animals that cross our paths daily. While writing this book I was visited by:

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Pacific Harbor Seal

California Sea Lion

Common Loon

Western Grebe

Horned Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Gadwall

Mallard

Surf Scoter

Red-breasted Merganser

Canada Goose

Bald Eagle

Red-tailed Hawk

Coopers Hawk

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Osprey

Domestic Chicken

Killdeer

Glaucous-winged Gull

Caspian Tern

Rock Pigeon

Annas Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Red-breasted Sapsucker

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Stellers Jay

American Crow

Violet-green Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Bewicks Wren

Pacific Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Varied Thrush

American Robin

Hermit Thrush

Cedar Waxwing

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Townsends Warbler

Orange-crowned Warbler

Wilsons Warbler

Western Tanager

Spotted Towhee

Dark-eyed Junco

Song Sparrow

House Finch

House Sparrow