Join BirdNote tomorrow, November 30th!
Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!
The Companionship of Birds
An unexpected encounter transforms anxiety into peace
© Brechin Morgan
When Brechin Morgan sailed around the world by himself, he experienced severe anxiety on the second night of his voyage. A cormorant sleeping on the deck of his boat brought peace at just the right moment. “I thought, my God, if this bird can sleep on a rocky, rolly boat in the middle of a windy, bitter-cold night . . . I can sleep, too,” he recalls. “I felt the presence of a companion that had something to tell me about how to live my life. And that was that I needed to sleep!” Check out Brechin's artwork, like the painting of the gull pictured here, in Related Resources below.
Support comes from Sasquatch Books, announcing The Breath of a Whale, stories of nature's remarkable creatures of the deep, from the author of The Hidden Lives of Owls.
BirdNote®
The Companionship of Birds
Interview by Todd Peterson
This is BirdNote.
[Strong wind and waves, boat moving through]
Imagine setting out alone from Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, on an around-the-world sailing voyage. And on the second night, finding an unexpected companion.
Here’s sailor Brechin [BREK-in] Morgan:
“This was the very first leg of the voyage and I was untested. The boat was untested. I left on a bitterly cold November night, heading south on a stiff breeze and I’m heading offshore alone for the first time in my life. The anxiety levels were very, very high. [wave crashing]
I came up on deck in the middle of a starless windy night. Everything was pitch black. And I saw in the very faint light what I thought was a paper bag sitting on top of the folded dinghy just forward of the hatch…And as I got a little bit closer I realized that it was a cormorant… It stood up, let its wings out, this dark shape…and then settled back down and put its head under its wing and started to go to sleep.
And I thought, my God, if this bird can sleep on a rocky, rolly boat in the middle of a windy, bitter-cold night…I can sleep, too. And so there was this final kind of relaxation, almost like it had shown up to tell me that it’s ok to sleep on a rolling boat in the middle of an ocean … And I felt the presence of a companion that had something to tell me about how to live my life. And that was that I needed to sleep!”
[Sound of strong wind and waves]
To learn more about Brechin’s voyage and see his paintings of the journey, begin at BirdNote.org.
Support comes from Sasquatch Books, announcing The Breath of a Whale, stories of nature's remarkable creatures of the deep, from the author of The Hidden Lives of Owls.
###
Sail boat moving through waves recorded by J. Kessler.
Wind Nature SFX Essentials #2 recorded by Gordon Hempton of QuietPlanet.com.
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2019 Tune In to Nature.org March 2019 Narrator: Mary McCann
Marantz Disk V Track 493
ID# morganb-01-2019-03-02 morganb-01b
Todd Peterson
Writer