NL.15 -- Blackbird
Article voiceover
Dirk and Bente —a lively, mellifluous pair of Eurasian Blackbirds— have been my companions since February. Just outside the window of my studio is their realm.
What a singing range, what a performance of territorial bouncing and swooping, what a rhythm blackbirds give to a day.
A short audio-video tribute to Dirk and Bente and their Amsterdam courtyard (1:47) follows these words and this painting.
* Watercolours and photographs by Kenneth Mills
Thanks for looking in on Dispatches.
🎼 Blackbird singing in the dead of night 🎶
I love your painting
For me it was crows in Paris... In the grayest of days, when there was no sky, they punctuated the barren branches I walked under, to get to and from the Institute. Their cawing structured time between one darkness and another. I kept thinking how happy I'd be to "befriend" one, but it didn't happen. But many let me get close enough to look into their eye.
Love your fragments of sound and image.