Starling-like and Overlooked

Transdimensional Songs of Hope

Western Meadowlark, January 2025 watercolor and pencil on plant print

In January, I was at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area, trying to get the hang of my new long lens and capture a new selection of reference photos for art. The refuge was shrouded in dense fog, and I spent the first hour of the morning trying to peer through the haze. When at last, the sun began to pierce the caul, the first rays of freed light flashed across the breast of a western meadow lark. I watched him in awe for five minutes, marveling that he remained visible as he gaped for grubs along the shoreline.

Audubon named the western meadowlark Sturnella neglecta, meaning starling-like and overlooked by most. Although, they are actually an ichterid, and like orioles, they are members of the blackbird family. And I’m not sure they are overlooked as much as they prefer to remain unseen. They embrace the opposite of what I was taught as child, that little girls should be seen and not heard. Meadowlarks often remain unseen but are always heard. I would like to be a meadowlark.

You must walk into a meadow, a stretch of grassland, or a freshly mowed field to find them. They are creatures of unconfined spaces, preferring to hide in plain sight and winking out the moment you fix your eyes on them. There is safety in being overlooked, even if your voice carries.

It wasn’t until I hunted with a peregrine falcon two decades ago that they truly caught my eye. My first peregrine, Anakin, found their flights irresistible, but the moment he gave chase, an entire flock of meadowlarks would dissolve into the stubble of harvested alfalfa fields. And no matter how far I walked I could not find them again.

Now, flights of meadowlarks immediately draw my close attention because a part of me believes that they flit through spacetime, reappearing where they please. I keep hoping to finally see one blink out of my dimension and into another.

I imagine meadowlarks flitting through doorways I cannot see while singing a ringing song of hope to themselves. And it must be a song of hope, because I cannot hear it without pausing, taking a deep breath and feeling the corners of my mouth lift. Elusive and yet everywhere, a flock of meadowlarks seems to throw their voices in the winter, their call and answer filling the spaces around me while I try and fail to triangulate the source of the sound.

They aren’t a raucous chorus like a flock of blackbirds, creating a singular din. They take turns, respectfully pausing for their friends to celebrate the crisp morning air and the rising sun. Each voice is important. Each voice elevates the spirit of the flock and the beauty of the land. One by one, they celebrate what has always been and praise the moment they are in.

I would like to be a meadowlark, obscuring my cadmium yellow t-shirt beneath a dusty field-worn jacket as I slip through the world unnoticed. I would like to be a meadowlark, lifting my face to the sun, my jacket falling open and my voice ringing out hope in a song that carries farther than any shout. And as soon as all who heard me smiled and turned to find me, I would blink out through an invisible doorway to find another patch of sun and sing again.

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Video taken by Nicole Padron, Co-Executive Director of Rivers & Lands Conservancy (and my leadership partner) on one of the conservancy’s preserves in Southern California.