Hello

Hello.
I live in a tree near the Skagit river which flows into the Salish sea.  The view from here is breathtaking although I'm usually more interested in viewing my dinner.
Some days I can travel up to 300 miles.  I'm as fast as a car.  I am friends with the wind.  I play games with my friends, some of whom just stop in to visit on their way somewhere else.  I have a few friends that usually don't live here at all but, lately, seem to have taken a liking to this place.

 

Life is pretty good here on the Skagit.  Food is plentiful and  survival is fairly easy.

Since I am a bird, I don't understand politics but I do know about survival.    I know that it's warmer than it used to be and I find more shiny things to hoard than I used to.  Lately, though,  I've noticed more habitat for me and my friends thanks to Hedlins and others.








I've travelled around and I think this is the place to be.

We birds know about magic.

more..

top down: 'Crow' colored pencil; 'Heron' colored pencil; 'Skagit Geese' photograph;  all images: Kathleen Faulkner

Aspen

          **


One day, hiking around in Mazama, Washington,  I found myself in the midst of a "forest" of Aspen.  It was an odd feeling, as if I were intruding upon someone's personal space.  It so struck me that I came home and did these three pieces.

Aspen is considered to be an Indicator of Ancient Woodlands.

*Clonal Colony is a group of genetically identical individuals that have grown in a given location,  all originating from a single ancestor.

*A group of 47,000 Quaking Aspen clones in the Wasatch Mountains, Utah, is sometimes considered the world's largest organism by mass, covering 110 acres.

I think that qualifies this tree to have some magic, at least.


*from Widipedia, the free encyclopedia

** "Aspen", "Aspen II", "Aspen III", oil pastels, each 23x21" Kathleen Faulkner