Birdfeeding Intro

[narya_flame]

 

Username: narya_flame, but I go by Narya

Your other online venues: https://www.tumblr.com/naryaflame

Your approximate location: Edinburgh, Scotland

 

What are your interests in birds? I just like them? I find them very soothing. I don't know a lot about them but that's partly why I joined the community!

How big is your yard / balcony / etc. if any? I have a small lawned garden at the back of my house. I only need to walk a few minutes down the road, though, to get to open fields and woodland.

What is your general habitat / climate zone? Temperate. Cold, short, often damp days in winter; gorgeous long cool summer nights.

What do you do to attract birds, if anything? Honestly, nothing. I live in a suburban area and many of my neighbours have outdoor cats. (Very, VERY different norms on cat-keeping in the UK as compared to the US.) I don't want to provide them with a free meal.

What are some birds you often see in your area? I get a lot of wagtails in my garden. In the nearby nature reserve and along the coast, curlews are a common sight, as are terns, sea ducks and grebes.

 

What is your blog like? It started as my Tolkien fandom blog but it contains a good deal of real life wittering!

How active is it? Ehh. Up and down depending on how work and life are going.

What are your most common topics? Food. My dog. Books and media. Fandom stuff. Not necessarily in that order.

What kinds of friends would you like to attract? Anyone, really! I like people.

Comments

[devon]

Hello! I love that you have different varieties of the same birds I have seen. I love grebes! I had to look up wagtails.

I'm a lifelong Tolkien fan, but I'm not very fannish about it, if that makes sense. My grandma read The Hobbit to me when I was young, and she taught FOTR to her high school senior students.

[narya_flame]

That does make sense! There are lots of things that I love deeply, but that I'm not "fannish" about, per se.

Wagtails are super cheeky; they tease my dog through the window.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

My mother read me The Hobbit when I was four. I read Lord of the Rings in third grade. The teacher didn't believe I was really reading it. I launched into an enthusiastic description of the Departure of Boromir that left the rest of the class staring at me with eyes the size of dinner plates. The teacher handed the book back, allowed that I obviously didn't need "reading class," and let me read whatever I wanted in the back of the room. Only intelligent response I ever got from a reading teacher.

One of the things I love about milieu fiction is the descriptions, and I often write that way. Tolkien wrote wonderful tours of Middle-Earth.

Re: Yes ...

[narya_flame]

I think I would have been around the same age as you were when I read it, too - third grade is about eight years old, right? I actually read LOTR before The Hobbit, as I'd seen the Bakshi cartoon when I was very small; I came to The Hobbit later.

Tolkien wrote wonderful tours of Middle-Earth.

Yes, he does! One of my favourite ways to unwind is to dip into one of the books and go on a mental holiday with one of the gorgeous descriptive passages.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I think I would have been around the same age as you were when I read it, too - third grade is about eight years old, right? <<

That sounds about right.

>> I actually read LOTR before The Hobbit, as I'd seen the Bakshi cartoon when I was very small; I came to The Hobbit later.<<

I saw The Hobbit when I was little, but not the Bakshi until much later.

>> Yes, he does! One of my favourite ways to unwind is to dip into one of the books and go on a mental holiday with one of the gorgeous descriptive passages.<<

I love the fact that all the characters seem to sing and compose poetry on the spot, even the orcs.

Re: Yes ...

[narya_flame]

I love the fact that all the characters seem to sing and compose poetry on the spot, even the orcs.

Right??

Someone on a Discord server said recently they skipped over all the poems, and I was all *surprised_pikachu* - the poems are great!

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

O_O That is so awful.

Sheesh, I still have some of those things memorized, and parts of a bunch more. Tolkien was one of my earliest poetic influences, along with Kipling and Dr. Seuss; if you look at my work, you can see that in it.

Plus of course, that's where I learned the hurt-comfort plot ratchet, which my readers adore. Too many writers, especially nowadays, crank the stress up to 11 and just leave it there, so the audience goes numb. You should crank it up, then put the characters in a nice warm bath. That way, they'll be freshly sensitized when you want to take them out and play with them again. :D

LOL we should write something about birds in Tolkien. "Crebain, from out of Dunland!" "Hide!"

Re: Yes ...

[narya_flame]

I recently wrote this piece for an exchange, for someone who requested gorcrows:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42580317

It's not very positive about birds, though that isn't the fault of the birds.

I might nominate some bird related tags for the worldbuilding exchange and see if anyone bites...

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I recently wrote this piece for an exchange, for someone who requested gorcrows: <<

That is so beautiful. Very Tolkienesque.

>> I might nominate some bird related tags for the worldbuilding exchange and see if anyone bites... <<

Good idea.

Hmm, we need a fictional birds tag here too.

I wish Torn World was still going, I built a whole avian ecosystem for one shard there.

I do, however, have my Fifer series going: see Feathered Nests.

There will be a call for themes in my blog, hopefully this Monday, to invite ideas for upcoming Poetry Fishbowls. By all means propose Birds for that. :D Then I'll collect the suggestions and post a poll for fans to vote on themes.

Re: Yes ...

[narya_flame]

Oh, thank you! I will make use of that tag for sure :D

There will be a call for themes in my blog, hopefully this Monday, to invite ideas for upcoming Poetry Fishbowls. By all means propose Birds for that. :D

:D

I will have to set a reminder on my phone; Monday is my first day back at work so my head will be all over the place.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Oh, thank you! I will make use of that tag for sure :D

Nature writing is certainly relevant here. It would be interesting to feature writing about fictional birds -- from historic myths to speculative fiction -- as well as local ones. Hmm, and cryptids or questionably extinct birds, like the ivory-billed woodpecker.

>>I will have to set a reminder on my phone; Monday is my first day back at work so my head will be all over the place.<<

Okay, maybe it's better if you just make a list of your theme suggestions now and send them to me. I can always save that to copy into a comment.

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Also you should post about that story here. I made a "birds: fictional" tag. There is a ton of fiction, poetry, etc. about birds.

*chuckle* Terramagne has a family movie called One Hundred Little Houses, about making a bluebird trail. It's mentioned in at least one poem I've written.