Photo: Common Loons, Howard Arndt/Audubon Photography Awards
Libby Lyons
As 2024 begins, I look ahead and I am thankful for birds. I appreciate their role in actions such as pollination, dispersal of seeds, production of guano fertilizer, and provision of food. But it is their intangible services that truly earn my gratitude. More and more evidence and personal experience show me that birdsong lifts our spirits and improves our mental health. And sometimes the beauty of their flights and behaviors takes my breath away, leaving joy in its place.
That birds inspire our creativity is evident from literature and visual art. Here I want to focus on one visual genre, that of cartoons. Over the past few decades, I have collected cartoons about birds and to date have more than 1,400 of them!
I hope a quick flyover of my collection provides you with a New Year’s lift and an upbeat perspective that helps rally you to join us in the more serious battles we are waging to protect birds and nature in northern Virginia.
What have I learned from my bird cartoons? First, laughter is a great salve – it releases endorphins and increases feelings of well-being, and, when combined with a love of birds, that salve is supercharged! Second, humor (be it whimsical, boffo, macabre, slapstick, existential, absurdist, melancholy, or sublime) is as complex and as idiosyncratic as beauty – it lies in the belly laugh of the beholder. Third – because birds are so ubiquitous, we share much common knowledge that serves as a great starting point for shared humor. Finally, most of my collected bird cartoons are really about human foibles, often made funnier by being transposed onto birds.
Some of the cartoons are about birds’ unique characteristics--the ability to fly or, for kiwis, fly only in their dreams, seasonal migration shown as mittens flying north or air conditioners flying south, flamingos always standing on one leg, bluebirds of happiness being supplanted by pigeons of quiet desperation, and penguins only able to see things in black and white or struggling with casual Friday garb.
In far more cartoons, though, birds reflect the human condition. The topics are varied and include:
Relationships – a mate finding stray feathers from a “nestwrecker,” parents becoming empty nesters or labelling the younger generation as rebels for flying in a J formation
Technology –an exquisitely drawn loon carrying chicks on its back (in car seats!); a pair of birds constructing a complex nest using a large instruction sheet and ending with one leftover twig; elders lamenting that young birds learn birdsong from downloads to their devices
Social Status – birds trying to outdo one another with birdhouses that feature tennis courts, hot tubs, and worm cellars
Current Events – climate change forcing all bald eagles to relocate to Canada, the challenges of teleworking from a nest full of chicks, discovering that covid masks make nice nest material, and forbidding newspaper on the bottom of a birdcage lest the news stress the birds
Two other types of cartoons are worth noting. A handful of cartoons make fun of birdwatchers, having birds use binoculars to watch humans and giving them names like the paunch-bellied, shiny-headed twitcher, or crowds of birds with long-lens cameras jostling to get the best picture of a rare human.
And finally, some cartoons are just an excuse for clever wordplay: think poultrygeist, budgie deficits, gaggle maps for geese, irritable owl syndrome, fowl play, carrion luggage, and opening a can of worms.
Alas, this is just a quick pass through my collection. Someday I plan to dive deeper and share more from this rich lode of avian humor. And I already have ideas for my own bird cartoons – if only I could draw!
Happy Birding – and I look forward to seeing you on the birding trails in 2024!