Another Day in Marfa

This October will be my third Chinati Open House since living in Marfa, and the second where I have lived across the street from the Chinati Foundation. What that means is that it is the second year of the incessant whine of weed whackers from sunrise to sunset as Chinati preps for open house. And we’re talking multiple weed whackers…so that led me to trying to think of a good collective noun for them: a whinge of weed whackers, maybe? And has weed whacker been elevated to a compound noun, weed-whacker?

As a word lover, I am naturally enthralled by the group names for birds. Many of these are noted in James Lipton’s book, An Exaltation of Larks. What is intriguing about the English language is how it evolves through usage, how malleable it is. Most of these group names can’t be found in the dictionary, but have been adopted through use by birders with sources as far back as 1440.

Here are some of my favorites:

• A building of rooks
• A charm of finches
• A company of parrots
• A cover of coots
• A deceit of lapwings
• A descent of woodpeckers
• An exaltation of larks
• A murmuration of starlings
• A murder of crows
• A parliament of owls
• A pitying of turtledoves
• A sord of mallards
• An unkindness of ravens

If you want more, check out the Baltimore Bird Club website, where I uncovered this list, and the handy table at Nutty Birdwatcher.

I’m really honored to have been selected to design and build the website for Ayn Foundation here in Marfa.

It launched last week so if you feel like heading over there and taking a look, I’d love to hear what y’all think.

A propos of yesterday’s post, here’s some pix from the Javelina Incident which happened early this year.

Background: Erika heard a lot of thunking under the floor of her house and a funny smell. At first, the thought was ‘mice,’ but there was much too much noise happening below decks for a creature that small. So Erika took position after nightfall outside her house and watched as, one by one, four baby javelina emerged from the crawlspace under her house.

A couple of months ago, maybe more, a barn swallow couple began to build a mud nest on the front wall of my house under the covered porch.

After a short time, four baby barn swallows could be seen peering over the edge of the nest. Then the feeding began. The mom and dad, from daybreak to sunset, spent their days flying back and forth without stop to feed their babies. As they approached the nest, the four babies set to screeching as if saying “me, me, me,” their mouths gaping. How did mom and day know which was the next bird to feed? Of the four babies, one was smaller and always in the back of the nest. Don’t think it got it’s fair share.

About a month later, I was about to walk out onto the front porch when I noticed about five birds flying back and forth just in front of my door. The babies had learned to fly!

If you work in front of a computer all day as I do (and even if you don’t) what a gift to witness this.

Other news on the Marfa wildlife front: a mountain lion and her cubs spotted by my neighbor in the field across from my house; the first tarantula of this season spotted today as it booked across my front lawn; one of my cactus chomped, probably by a Javelina.

Barn Swallows