Gratitude 27

I am particularly grateful for the orioles.  Not the baseball team, and what's with this business of naming baseball teams after birds?  Blue jays, orioles, redwings.  They have nothing to do with each other.  Birds are beautiful.  Unlike dumb competitive team sports that have nothing to do with beauty and everything to do with summoning forth some of the uglier traits of human nature.

I am referring here to the New World orioles, which are also known as icterids.    Sounds like disgusting critters from out of a science fiction novel.  But really they are beautiful and here are some lovely images if you don't believe me:

These birds are so elegant.  Despite the brilliant colours of their plumage there is still something understated and restrained about their beauty.  They are like the silent fire in the night and the flames of the sun fallen to the earth.

When I visited Ottawa and Toronto I saw some Baltimore orioles like this one.

They are a delight to draw and paint and their calm joy touches me in deep places.

I saw some of these in Bogota, Colombia, one day in the botanical gardens.

Here are two of my own lame attempts at honouring

orioles in my art.  I will keep on trying!