This is Bird Note.

Over the last few years, writer Emily Rabbitot has been going out and photographing a series of bird murals found throughout New York City, commissioned by the National Audubon Society.

Documenting this artwork has been a source of solace for Emily, especially during the COVID

pandemic.

One day, she came across an artist finishing up a gray hawk mural in West Harlem.

She was like putting some bars on its wings. It was beginning to look really real just as I arrived.

The murals highlight birds at risk of extinction

due to climate change.

The artists get to pick a species to paint.

So Emily asked the artist, why the Greyhawk?

She had chosen this one because the gray and the

feathers reminded her of the color of her mother's hair. Her mom had died the

year before so this bird reminded her of somebody she had lost, and she was thinking about that as she made this bird for us all to enjoy.

And as she was painting it, she noticed an actual bird in the air

flying above us. It was also a hawk, not the same species, but she just felt like that was the spirit of her mom, you know?

There was a way that it felt almost like a spiritual enterprise.

You have these breaststrokes of beauty that invite you to look upon

something unusual.

Emily Rabatoe's new book is called Lessons for Survival, Mothering Against the Apocalypse.

Find a link on our website, Birdnote.org. I'm Ariana Rimmel.