Autumn Migration

"I hope you like birds, too. It's economical, it saves going to heaven."
Emily Dickenson

Crane filled autumn sky
more join in and more and more
oh, take me with you

Soon the Cook Inlet flocks of Sandhill cranes will pass overhead sounding the migration call, and the Kachemak Bay sub flocks, adults & fledglings, will swarm and spiral higher and higher to reach the rest, to catch that thermal current that will carry the long line of cranes up & away until they fade and disappear.

I have seen it before and it is a stirring sight & sound as the jubilant cranes can really belt it out with that 42 inch long trachea, an orchestra of blasting French Horns. You hear them before you see them a mile high above, in continuously changing formations spelling out gratitude, writing peace poems, and signaling their farewell, "kerlee, kerloo. We'll be back."

The departure of the cranes also signals the call to a number of humans to gather on the beach of the Homer Spit with armloads of alder, and bundles of grass and nettles.

It is time to build Homer's 6th Burning Basket.

All are invited to join in the creating of a large basket sculpture and labyrinth.
The upcoming sculpture will be 16th in a series.
Learn more about the Burning Basket Project, www.mavismullerart.com

"Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul - and you answer."
Star Riches

I began gathering materials for the big basket earlier in the summer. I tied up many bundles of grass from the field after it was cut for hay, hung them to dry along with bundles of nettles and alder. I couldn't resist using these materials as an art resource for field art of
my favorite subject, the lanky birds that frequently land, feed, and dance in this field, the Sandhill cranes.

This grassy creation is part of a global collaborative art project about climate change. The effort is to raise awareness of the need to decrease carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million, for humanity and for all life.

We are now at 390ppm and rising. 350 is the most important number for the world, and is the collective artistic global message being sent to the Climate Change Summit, Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. We need to get the number back down.

In the backdrop is one of the rapidly melting glaciers of the Harding Ice Field, the Grewingk Glacier.

Learn more, get involved. www.350.org

My favorite part of this field mosaic was when a resident pair of cranes came by to check it out. I think they knew I was up on the ladder with my camera, but they were too curious to care. What is this? Looks like a giant one of us...