Before I read Amy Tan’s Backyard Bird Chronicles, I had been seeing birds as individuals rather than members of a specific species of bird.
It’s one of several intentions I had for this ambitious watercolor painting. See the birds as I would people in a crowd. Each with their own personality and agendas. (That’s Intention 1.)
Pictured are 22 birds, grackles and red-wing blackbirds. They are gathered together because, well, I feed them. Taking as many photos as I could, undetected from my window, I collected references of the birds’ movements and postures. When a majority of a bird’s life is spent in flight, it’s amusing to see the positions a bird’s body must take to feed on the ground.
As I started on the base drawing for the painting, both a title and a narrative began forming in my head. This can be a good thing as it keeps me interested in the work for the long haul. It can be a bad thing, as I can fall in love with the story in my head while the painting slowly bombs.
The Flight Scheduling Committee Meeting (2025) © Kristin Maija Peterson. 40“ long x 12.5“ high, unframed. Watercolor on 300 lb. Cold Press Fabriano
Intention 2: Make it a Runway.
Make the painting long and narrow, like a runway. (It’s 40” long by 12.5” high.) It’s autumn, October, to be exact, the season of migration, flocks, and flight. Sadly, that’s buckthorn in the background. Its leaves are thinning into transparent patches of pale green and yellow.
Just beyond the buckthorns lies a beautiful, lush marsh. This is where the red-winged blackbirds are first spotted in spring. They are a welcome sight and sound, telling me winter is ending in earnest. Here they will find mates, build nests, and raise their babies.
Grackles are harbingers of autumn. I rarely see them before they start flocking in October, dotting the oak trees that stand along the marsh’s edge. They have the most unusual vocals, and it’s hard not to love how they puff up, showing off their iridescent colors.
Grackles have a behavior called the “head tilt.” It’s a display male grackles demonstrate by pointing their bills up high, holding that position as long as possible to intimidate other males. It’s both territorial and, I assume, impresses the ladies. He who tilts his head the longest wins.
Intention 3: We are gathered together
Here are two species of migratory birds, and I wonder if they would gather together like this if there weren’t for all the black sunflower seeds I tossed out on the ground. Yet, here they are, non-aggressive, there’s no head tilting. Mating season is over. Migration and bulking up are on everyone’s mind.
The Flight Scheduling Committee Meeting (2025) © Kristin Maija Peterson. Five detail views. The last one, with the grackle looking down, represents me, in the sort of fashion some famous artists throughout art history have painted their own likeness into their paintings.
That’s how I came to title this piece The Flight Scheduling Committee Meeting. It’s not the most poetic of titles, but it does tell the viewer what’s going on by evidence of the birds gathering, planning, and preparing for takeoff, the fallen leaves, and the fading grasses.
Intention 4: Issues with Migrating
Migration is dangerous business for birds. One issue is light pollution. It’s disorientating for birds flying at night. While it takes a collective effort to curb light pollution, I keep outdoor lights off overnight, not just for migratory birds but for the owls who are hunting.
