“No matter who you are or where as a childhood you happened to live, most likely you took some of your first steps toward growing up and growing out because nature charmed you into the precious work of unfolding.”

-Gary Ferguson

Hey friends,

In April I traveled back home to Central California to visit family. After living away from the area for 13 years now it certainly doesn’t feel like home anymore–and maybe never really did. Whenever I go back I feel a notable absence of the heartbeat of life. Neighborhoods there are sterile lawn-and-concrete expanses with few native trees, and the trees that do grow are typically no taller than a two-story home, isolated from any sort of fully functioning ecosystem. After a few days I only noticed 7 species of birds visiting the block, the sounds of leaf blowers and car engines far more prevalent than birdsong. Nevertheless, I managed to find a bit of reassurance in the more noticeable birds like Crows, Starlings, and Mourning Doves calling from the line of imported palm trees down the street.

Sure, there are some animals who have managed to adapt and survive in this alien landscape, and some humans who intentionally plant native gardens to help support pollinators and the like, but are they thriving? Are humans, for that matter, thriving there, steeped in some of the most badly polluted air in the world, harsh summer heat, and extreme droughts? As that region sees even longer and hotter summers what happens to the wildlife, the humans, the tiny pockets of native habitat that have so far managed to survive Big Ag’s takeover and the resulting desertification? Each time I visit I am struck with the sickening sense that the region is on borrowed time, having long since had its rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems choked out in a desperate attempt to conquer the land at an immense cost to all life within the state and beyond. Hell, even the rare and remote Channel Islands are burning right now because of this deeply ingrained ignorance that breeds destruction of our environment, our home.

Moving up north to the Pacific Northwest and spending years solo traveling across the region taught me what home can feel like when you enter into a dialogue with life beyond the human world. Even though I live in the heart of a large city there is still so much wildlife around my very urban home that I have learned to witness through slow observation. Woodpeckers excavate nests in my neighbor’s trees. Hummingbirds perch outside my bedroom window daily, songbirds arrive in droves during the spring and sometimes we even get some rarities, like the Summer Tanager juvenile who posted up in someone’s yard for many months this past winter. Bats swoop low over the nearby park at dusk graciously catching the mosquitoes who threaten to eat me alive each year. It’s all welcomed. It’s all a relationship, a dialogue, with life itself. It all makes this place feel like home.

The most obvious animal I seem to be able to find wherever I am is, of course, the American Crow. They’re so ubiquitous that you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in our region who hasn’t ever crossed paths with one.  Not shy by any means, these birds are often one of the most noticeable animals in urban areas. So noticeable in fact that they will absolutely make their presence known to you if they think you’ve wronged them by way of dive bombs and other threat tactics. On the other hand, crows are also known to offer gifts to humans who have shown them kindness, suggesting they possess emotional intelligence and long memories. Crows are incredibly smart and socially complex creatures that have captivated humans across time and cultures because of their charismatic ways and story-rich presence in our urban lives.

Because crows are often one of the most prevalent animals in cities, they serve an important role as an easy entry point for getting to know the natural world around us– a “gateway bird”, as it were. They are almost always the first birds I hear each morning when I wake, and I love laying out in my hammock on warm afternoons as they perch in the tree overhead, eating or preening or cawing across the street at their pals. Almost daily I’ll be sitting here working and hear them land on my roof, and the tippy-taps of their claws as they strut across the shingles is a delightful little comfort reminding me that connection to the wider world comes in the smallest ways, and those ways are accessible to us no matter where we live. Crows have become one of my anchors to the type of world that feels most like home to me no matter where I am.

Bless the birds, bless the wildlife around us, everywhere, always. Especially when they become so close to your heart that their presence alone can make even the most developed places feel a little more like home.

As a love letter to the crows, my constant and most reliable tether to the more-than-human world, I’ve finally portrayed them in watercolor.

If you live in Portland you know how much we love our beautiful crow neighbors, especially during winter when massive flocks of over 20,000 of them roost downtown. I’ve situated this pair among wild Nootka rose, a prolific Pacific Northwest native plant I love. When I think of this region my mind swells with images of these soft pink petals gently cupping endlessly falling rain drops, bright against the moody, foggy backdrop of our dense forests, wetlands, and city parks.

Took me a while to figure out how to situate this couple in a way that properly flowed, but after trying many, many iterations I like where they landed.

The original painting has sold, but you can collect prints and stickers of "Our Wild Hearts" over in the shop.

Cheers to the crows, to art, to music, and all of our wild neighbors who make life worth living. Thanks for being here.

Jenn