Thursday, October 12, 2006

IATB #34: Hootenanny!

Our poster portrays the birds listed in our final song: The Birds.
1. (Redwinged) Blackbird. 2. (Stellar) Bluejay 3. (Long-nosed) Bat
4. Mourning Dove
5. (Gila) Woodpecker 6. (Great Horned) Owl*
7. (Tree) Swallow
8. (Cooper's) Hawk 9. Crow 10. Robin

Birds figure widely in traditional music and folksongs throughout the world. This 34th issue of I and the Bird invites you to an international hootenanny** at Tortoise Trail, in Tucson, Arizona, as birders from around the world sing their joyous songs. This is a multi-media production! See the beautiful photos our singers have brought us while you listen to them sing. Come on in, join the fun, and - in hootenanny tradition - sing along with us!

FROM DOWN UNDER
Travelling 0ver 8000 miles, Duncan, Snail and Trevor have joined us from Australia.
Duncan of Ben Cruachan Blog sings us "A tale of two trips," treating us to the bird treasures, including Freckled Ducks, that he found and photographed on each.

Snail of A Snail's Eye View lives in Melbourne, Victoria. Snail's song gives us the sight and sound of King Cracticus, the Black Butcherbird, a tropical species, restricted to rainforests of Far North Queensland, the Northern Territory and New Guinea.

Trevor, of Trevor's Birding, who hails from Murray Bridge, South Australia says of his song, Great Birding Moments #3 - The Mistletoebird, "Mistletoebirds are regular - almost daily visitors to our garden here in South Australia. Their cheerful calls and bright colours are enough to lighten any day."

Accompaniment: Traditional Australian bush music instruments:
lagerphone (or Murrimbidgee River Rattler)***, bush bass, didjeridu, and clapsticks.

FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Save the Ribble!, Roger, Charlie, and Peregrine Craig Nash have travelled from the other side of the world: the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, over 5000 miles northeast of Tucson.
  • A resident of Sheffield, Roger takes us to the southwest corner of England, where he sings "Choughed to be back in Cornwall." This roundelay tells of his delight in sighting a bird once thought to be extinct in Cornwall. Accompaniment: Traditional Cornish instruments - bagpipes and fiddles.
  • Charlie of Charlie's Bird Blog lives in Chippenham, Wiltshire. His airline job takes him all over the world - he doesn't get much sleep, but he gets fantastic opportunities for birding. This month Charlie sings of Africa: Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens, Cape Town in a wonderfully illustrated work. Accompaniment: African strings, flutes, drums, marimbas, gourds and horn trumpets.
  • Peregrine Craig Nash of Peregrine's Bird Blog hails from Strangford, Northern Ireland. Sing along with him as he regales us with the ballad of Migration Birding in Donegal where he met Ian Wallace of "Beguiled by Birds" fame. His band accompanies him on Uillean pipes, tin whistles and flutes, bodhrans and bones.
FROM THE UNITED STATES
  • From New York State, Mike of 10000 Birds keeps us singing and dancing as he describes surprises at Happy Hawk Day 2006 at the Lenoir Nature Preserve in Westchester County. Mike's band joins him on mandolin, fiddle, guitar and bass.
  • Lillian Stokes of Stokes Birding Blog from New Hampshire is an expert tunesmith. Her tune, Freedom: Broad-winged Hawk, heralds a Broad-winged Hawk experiencing its first taste of freedom. She sings against the background of harp-zither, dulcimer, guitar, bass.
  • laurahinnj, of Somewhere in NJ, presents a lilting mystery song, Bird Quiz! As she raises her sweet voice a capella, try to guess the identity of the birds she's presenting.
  • The Ridger, keeper of The Greenbelt, brings us her song, Birds and Others, from Maryland. "I've moved to a new office building with a nice little park to walk through, and this week I've been seeing some of my favorite back-home birds coming in for the winter."
  • From the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, robin andrea of Dharma Bums, fingers flying on her concertina, sings a delightful sea song, The Birds on the Bay, as she wonders "Which birds stay through the winter in your neck of the woods?"
  • My own voice is pretty rusty these days, so I've asked my mariachi friends to create a norteño about the juvenile Cooper's Hawk that visited our backyard in mid-September. They play on violins, vihuelas, and guitars.
Many, many thanks to all our performers for a wonderful event!!

NEXT IATB #35. Don't forget to tune in on October 26, when Dan of Migration will be hosting IATB #35. Email your posts to him at daniel-dot-rhoads AT gmail-dot-com or to Mike of 10000 Birds at mike AT 10000birds-dot-com. Deadline for submissions is Tuesday, October 24.

Before we head for home, join us in singing The Birds, a New England tribute to our feathered (and one leather-winged) friends based on an early English song. (There's a portrait of each of the principal birds in this song on our IATB Hootenanny poster.) If you don't know remember the tune, listen to this midi file for a quick reminder.

THE BIRDS
from Songs from the Hills of Vermont, 1919

Hi! says the blackbird, sitting on a chair,
Once I courted a lady fair;
She proved fickle and turned her back,
And ever since then I'm dressed in black.

Hi! says the blue-jay as she flew,
If I was a young man I'd have two;
If one proved fickle and chanced for to go,
I'd have a new string to my bow.

Hi! says the little leather winged bat,
I will tell you the reason that,
The reason that I fly in the night
Is because I lost my heart's delight.

Hi! says the little mourning dove,
I'll tell you how to gain her love;
Court her night and court her day,
Never give her time to say "0 nay."

Hi! said the woodpecker sitting on a fence,
Once I courted a handsome wench;
She proved fickle and from me fled,
And ever since then my head's been red.

Hi! says the owl with my eyes so big,
If I had a hen I'd feed like a pig;
But here I sit on a frozen stake,
Which causes my poor heart to ache.

Hi! says the swallow, sitting in a barn,
Courting, I think, is no harm.
I pick my wings and sit up straight
And hope every young man will choose him a mate.

Hi! says the hawk unto the crow,
If you ain't black then I don't know.
Ever since old Adam was born,
You've been accused of stealing corn.

Hi! says the crow unto the hawk,
I understand your great, big talk;
You'd like to pounce and catch a hen,
But I hope the farmer will shoot you then.

Hi! says the robin, with a little squirm,
I wish I had a great, big worm;
I would fly away into my nest;
I have a wife I think is the best.

-----------------------------------

* Many thanks to t.beth of Firefly Forest for the use of her Great Horned Owl photo.

** Hootenanny, n. 1. An informal social gathering or concert featuring mostly folk songs, sometimes dancing, and where the audience often participates in the singing. 2. A gathering of folk musicians wherein each person gets an allotted amount of time in which to share songs they wrote.

*** For those of us in the northern hemisphere who might not know this instrument, the lagerphone is an upright pole with two crosspieces upon which are screwed beer bottle tops. The noise is made by hitting the instrument on the floor, at the same time striking the middle section with a solid piece of wood.

19 comments:

John B. said...

Well done. I'm sorry I missed the deadline for this one.

Lené Gary said...

You are absolutely amazing, Pam. This is awesome!

GreenmanTim said...

Gorgeous and grand!

Anonymous said...

What a hoot. Enjoyed every bit. Now I have to go back and view all those wonderful contributions.

Anonymous said...

I've got my lagerphone. I've got my beer carton (empty for percussion, you understand.) I'm ready for the dance.

Anonymous said...

Strewth mate - it's too (expletive deleted) hot to dance here in South Australia. Whatever happened to lovely spring days???

robin andrea said...

This is beautiful, Pam.

Deb said...

Great job Pam! I even know the melody to the last song, but you have many more verses that I knew of!

Patrick B. said...

Cool! I always wanted to be part of a Hootenanny.

Amy said...

Delightful presentation, Pam!

birdchaser said...

Nice presentation. Since the theme was bird music, I'm sorry I was out of the country and missed the chance to submit my birding spoof of Weird Al's White and Nerdy.

Anonymous said...

Very creative presentation, Pam! Love the Hootenanny poster.

Anonymous said...

Great job, Pam! I love the poster and the song--and of course, the great collection of posts.

Duncan said...

Good one Pam! When I played trombone in the local brass band, Hootenananny was out favourite fun piece, your presentation really struck a chord with me. :-)

Anonymous said...

wonderful Pam! I've missed your blog so much and it was a delight to stop by for a sho rt visit again. Excellent presentation and I love the ending limerick. Thanks for the smiles my friend- the butterfly image under this post is gorgeous as well.. I'll visit again soon.
Cindy

LauraHinNJ said...

Well done - great job! Will enjoy visiting all of these.

Pam in Tucson said...

Thanks to all who commented. I had a lot of fun with it. And it was wonderful to receive and read these great posts from old friends and new ones.

inchirieri apartamente cluj said...

This is interesting. You made quite a collection.

news games said...

This is beautiful... This is beyond awesome !!! I am realy honored to se how much work have you put into this