The Black Phoebe

After a spell of more than 15 years, one day, early this fall, I decided to resume bird watching.

It started out this way. My family was out hiking on a trail in Griffith park, and we spotted a pretty little bird on a log. It was flitting about, catching insects in the air and coming back to the log. It had a black crested head,  chest, shoulders, wings, and tail, and a white belly.

Image from Wikipedia

When we came back, I looked for it online on whatbird.com. And found it. It was the  Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans), a flycatcher from the Tyrannidae family.

A beautiful name, I felt, suggestive of a certain feminine mystery and elegance.

Weeks passed. I started to see this bird in parks, by ponds, on fences by the road, near my car parking spots both at home and at work, in my backyard, on the way to lunch, on the tree just outside my home... in fact, nearly every day, everywhere!

On campus, I pointed this bird out to a friend of mine. He is Greek, and pointed out to me the name's connection to Φοιβος, a name for Apollo (literally meaning "radiant"). Indeed, it turns out Phoebe (Φοίβη) was an appellation for his twin sister, Artemis. Artemis was a hunter, and is therefore typically depicted carrying a bow and arrows, accompanied by a hunting dog. It would appear that the Black Phoebe, skilled at hunting flying insects, is quite aptly named.

If you think about it a bit, this bird must actually have been everywhere around me for the past nine years that I've lived in Los Angeles. It's just that now it has entered firmly into my awareness, into my very consciousness. What was previously invisible is no longer hidden to me. Now I can finally see it.

My world feels richer because of this little creature, a secret revealed to me. When I see or hear it these days, I smile, moved by that warmth we feel when we recognize someone newly familiar and special to us.

This is, I believe, one of the main sources of  joy in bird watching. Each new bird we recognize and identify enters our world irrevocably. It is a neotenic pleasure, taking us back to the very beginnings of conscious awareness and language from our childhood, when we first learned to recognize things and beings in the world around us and associate names with them.

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I hope the Black Phoebe will be a good muse. I've started this eponymous blog to post notes related to bird watching and nature. Watch this space.