- Bird image painted in watercolor and ink on vintage USGS maps
- Laser printed text, on Zerkall German Ingres paper
- Tunnel book structure with gate folded hard covers housed archival folder with slip case
- 7 x 8 x .25 inches, closed
- Signed, unique handmade book
- 2023
- $1,800.00
- To order, please contact the artist.
Evening Grosbeaks are still numerous and widespread, but their populations have dropped by an estimated 74% from 1966 to 2019. For decades, one of the great natural spectacles at Oregon State University in Corvallis has been the massive flocks of grosbeaks that migrate through campus every April and May, filling the elm trees and feasting on their seeds. Estimates from the 1970s gave numbers of at least 150,000 to 250,000 birds passing through. At the time, students reportedly used umbrellas to shield themselves from grosbeak droppings. Surveys from 2013 to 2015 found annual variable numbers, from a few hundred grosbeaks in the lowest year to less than five thousand in the highest year. Today, the Evening Grosbeak is among the fastest declining landbirds in North America.
These are the days when Birds come back –
A very few – a Bird or two –
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies resume
The old – old sophistries of June –
A blue and gold mistake
Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee –
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.
Till ranks of seeds their witness bear –
And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.
Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze –
Permit a child to join
Thy sacred emblems to partake –
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!
– Emily Dickinson