Hey hey hey, I’ve had some more short stories published. Some are due out next month, but you can click the link below to read the latest, The War of the Buntings. It’s another in my series of “X-files birding tales” – yep, I’m creating a new genre ;)
https://dragonpoetreview.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/2018-winter-spring-issue-dragon-poet-review.pdf (page 105)
The idea for this story came about in Suncheon in 2015, when I was nestled down in the deep reeds on a birding stakeout. After ten or so minutes of sitting, I became part of the landscape to the birds, and they surrounded and flowed around me. I watched a band of Vinous-throated Parrotbills get into a heated squabble with an equal number of Yellow-throated Buntings.
It amused me to see such cute little birds displaying aggression, so to pass the time, I started narrating the battle in little cartoony Lemmiwinks voices: “I am Tsip-tsip-chee, the queen of these Parrotbills! You Buntings have stolen our lands for countless sun-cycles, and we will no longer sit by and let you subjugate us in our own land of Reed-ditch!” and so on.
Anyway, I’m a big weirdo, and I thought so much of the idea that I scaled it up to a book I’ve been working on since mid-December. Almost done the first draft...weirdo, told you.
(To read my other published birding tales, click on this handy clickety-click and scroll down:
http://snowyowllost.blogspot.ca/search/label/Writing%20stuff-published%20stories)
