Sunday, January 11, 2009

2008 - In Retrospect and Reflection

True, it's only been a little over a month. But I'll do a recap anyway. Having these many bird-dreams was a complete surprise. And I never foresaw such internal momentum pushing all these words out (I edit this stuff, I swear!). I also had no idea I'd enjoy this process as much as I do. It's quite fulfilling, even fun.

In my first post, I posited a direct correlation between frequency of real-world birding and dreambirding. The weeks since have clearly decimated that hypothesis. I've birded in earnest twice since starting this blog! Part of me would like to feel "impressive" reporting that I've learned some esoteric techniques that guarantee I'll dreambird each night (e.g. visualizations, yoga, purple Skittles before bed, etc.). Confession: I have meditated with intention on dreaming about birding/birds over a dozen times in the past forty days. How many times did it pan out? Once... maybe.

This month also saw two major dreambirding trends bucked and several firsts. Historically, my dreams have been populated with species I could expect to find locally (Austin, TX). These six weeks alone have seen: Tinamous, Macaws, a tropical hummingbird, asian shorebirds, Australasian parrots and several species from the western U.S. 2008 also saw a dramatic increase in non-passerine encounters (adding doves, ducks, owls, a Cockatoo, multiple parrots and others to the list). I'm confident there's been more diversity in these dreams over the past six weeks than the six years preceding. Keep it coming, I say. Bring... it... on!

Lastly, thanks to all who've visited. I'm eager to see where 2009 brings us.

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