My original plan when I was "young" was to be a birder when I retired.* I am pretty sure I may never retire unless forced to, so I've come to the realization that embracing birding right now is the thing to do.
After all, the world feels like it is exploding before our eyes and though we do what we can, marching with 800 of our neighbors in questionable clothing carrying a multiplicity of home-made signs doesn’t quite take away the helpless feeling. A birding app, a field guide, and a pair of binoculars has helped me ground myself when I feel like all the molecules in my body are going to fly apart never to be reunited.** The bird feeder, bird bath, and a friend who likes to go birding help too.
This potentially problematic urge to peer through the windshield (as a passenger of course) and yell, WESTERN KINGBIRD!, started a year ago with the Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Birding Festival. This event is held every year in my home county in southwestern Colorado and my birding friend wanted me to go along in 2025.^ That and a more appropriate pair of binoculars for birding as a gift from my parents was all it took to really dive in. The festival was a lot of fun and I’m already signed up for this year.
The trick isn't the birds, though the meadowlarks singing in the morning outside my window is especially cheering and I love being able to see lots of different birds in my yard. The trick is having something alive and interesting to focus on as well as having a goal. In birding, that is often learning enough about a particular bird to be able to yell out bird names while driving to the grocery store. Other people like to collect the names of birds they’ve seen on lists. I’m really mostly interested in learning more about them because birds do all kinds of fantastic things. But I’d be lying to you if I didn’t look at the number of birds on my Merlin life list from time to time and smile as the number increases.
I suppose birding is similar to lots of pursuits, including tapestry weaving. If I'm honest, I have a lot of the same feelings while engaged in either pursuit. I feel focused on trying to solve a puzzle and can forget anxious thoughts about whatever else is worrying me.
Rebecca Mezoff, tapestry diary/sketch tapestry, cotton warp, handspun wool weft, 12 epi.
For tapestry weaving, that challenge to use yarn to create a canvas with an image that depicts something I'm thinking or feeling is an engaging one. I get drawn into the micro-dramas of what will happen next. "If I move that weft over one more warp right now, will that make this curve rounder or will it look like a ball with a nipple?" "Yellow plus blue in this weft bundle really DO look like green!!" "Is being a tapestry weaver more or less nerdy than being a birder?"
Those of you who have been in my Summer of Tapestry courses will recognize that it isn’t quite the whole truth that my birding pursuit started last year. I was watching the birds in my backyard long before I got new binoculars. A lot of my sketch tapestries are about birds and I have a sneaking suspicion at least one of my examples in this year’s class will also be about birds.^^
I’ve woven quite a few sketch tapestries about birds over the years. There are lots of posts on this blog about this practice and you can find them under the category Tapestry Diary. I have a few favorite practices when it comes to weaving about birds. Sketch tapestry is about weaving something small, quick, and uncomplicated.
The first practice is spinning a continuous strand of yarn from the colors of a particular bird and then weaving it as it comes off the spindle. I love how the colors blend together and both the spinning and the weaving are uncomplicated and hold my attention (we’re going for anxiety reduction here, remember?). I wove the tapestry below like this. It is about the Lazuli Bunting that once visited my feeder when I lived in Fort Collins. It was one moment and I remember the magic of it because I took the time to make this little tapestry.^*^
Rebecca Mezoff, Lazuli Bunting sketch tapestry, cotton warp, handspun wool weft
The other favored technique is to weave about a lot of different birds in what becomes an eclectic comment on color and pattern. For the piece pictured below, I collected names and sometimes images of a wide variety of birds that I saw one spring and then wove their most identifying colors and patterns into a crazy-quilt of a tapestry.
Rebecca Mezoff, Birds of Colorado, cotton warp and wool weft
So when my anxiety ramps up or I find myself worrying about things I have little to no control over, weaving (or birding) is a great activity. It is a thousand percent better than doom scrolling.
*You know that time. You're 47 but you're SO far from 50 you can't imagine being "middle aged" even though you clearly are if you're paying attention to math.
**For various reasons, but mostly anxiety, about all the things. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
^My friend is 10 years younger than me and way cooler. She knows how to dance so I’m already way less cool than she is even before we take into consideration the age gap. So take that you “Birding is for Boomers” crowd. My birding friend is still solidly in her early 40s. Incidentally, I was at one of my two favorite bookstores, Maria’s in Durango recently, and they had the book, Birding for Boomers, which is also the title of the keynote Sneed Collard III the author will give at this year’s bird festival. I couldn’t buy the book because I am not a Boomer. (live long and prosper Gen X!) I did recently read one of his other books though, Warblers and Woodpeckers, and enjoyed it a lot. See last week’s newsletter for more information on that book about the Big Year he did with his son. Don’t know what a Big Year is? Look for the movie by that title and it’ll explain everything (Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin are just a few of the cast). Not a birder yet? Get some binoculars and pants with lots of pockets. I don’t know why the pockets are important, but you do have spots to keep your phone for the birding app you’re going to be using and plenty of snacks. The get-up will also identify you as a clueless birder if you unintentionally wander onto private property.
^^Yes, at this time I do intend to run Summer of Tapestry 2026 this year. Watch my newsletter for a schedule and registration information.
^*^ Okay, anyone present at that moment probably heard me screaming, THERE IS A LAZULI BUNTING AT THE FEEDER on repeat while I tried to steady my shaking hands to take a bad cell phone photo through the window without scaring it away. I later got a quiet nod about this win from the other occupant of the house which was sort of anticlimactic. Still, I forgot about the bookkeeping I was struggling with for quite a long time after that as I muttered under my breath every quarter hour, “lazuli bunting!”