Postcards in the Air : CITY SOUNDS

Friday, October 10, 2025

CITY SOUNDS

"Mark Making" for my first Inktober exercise

October marks two years since we moved into San Francisco, halfway through five moves after we sold our house in the suburbs. We don't miss our house and all the work entailed in keeping it in good shape. We have been on an adventure exploring different parts of the city, some of them familiar, others, new discoveries for us. We travel as much as possible by public transit.

The 22 Bus opened its doors, and we stepped out, expecting to hear all the noises of a city. Instead, at the stop in front of Galileo High School, we heard stone silence. Not a rumble of a bus, not a car gunning past us, no fire engines or police cars, no shouts from people walking on the street. We were stunned by the lack of noise. We expected to hear the calls of birds at least, but even they were silent.

The 22 Bus goes from Mission Creek through UCSF, with stops at Valencia and Fillmore streets, and ends near Chestnut Street on Laguna in the Marina. Two- and three-story stucco houses line the narrow streets crossing Laguna. Some of the streets have trees lining the walkways, while others are just concrete paths through a city. We miss the sweet chirping of small birds, such as finches and sparrows, that are so prevalent in the suburbs. We expected to hear them in the street trees near the bus stop, but all we heard was silence instead.

We used to belong to Cornell's Feeder Watch, and we spent time counting the different species of birds that landed in our former backyard. Counting birds is much easier to do in South Beach, where we now live, because there are so few birds. In the Spring, we hear finches calling out to prospective mates, and some street trees fill with their chatter during the Summer. If we step across the Embarcadero to the wharves, we can watch seagulls circle and circle, then squawk as they make a landing between the docks where the halyards of sailboats clang in the wind.

When we first moved into the city, we were surprised by the large flocks of crows. In Danville, more and more crows had moved in, battling with solitary hawks for food and nesting. But the city didn't seem an inviting place for crows. Lately, though, they have been banding together at sunset. They line the edge of the roof of the brick building across the street, then fly up to the huge billboard that faces the Bay Bridge. Restless, they disappear with sunset.

Doves used to nest in the porch eaves at our old house. Their relatives, pigeons, are city birds and feast on any scrap dropped on the ground. We watched as an older man flung down torn pieces of bread, instead of feeding using birdseed, a mistake that many of us make. The pigeons didn't care and gobbled up every crumb.

Occasionally, we see a hawk sailing high overhead or a group of pelicans skimming the water on the bay. Both of these birds are keystone species, as predators that influence their environment.

We notice the absence of birds because we came to enjoy their presence. In the city, we don't hear woodpeckers, another keystone species. At our former home, we regularly heard their rapid tapping as they made holes around the trunk of a birch while they sought insects for a meal. The holes became home for other species as well as a way to keep insect populations in check.

Several weeks ago, I published a post called "Keystones." Since then, I've been working on an illustration for the essay, which will be published this month in Story Circle Network's Substack called True Words from Real Women. But now, I need to figure out a way to add keystone birds to my drawing. October is also Intober, a challenge to do an ink drawing each day of the month.