Love Letters is Portland Monthly’s quarterly series from nonfiction comics creator and editor Shay Mirk celebrating the parties and places that shape our city.

We at Portland Monthly are a bird-loving bunch. Senior editor Rebecca Jacobson has donned her binoculars to trudge along with Güero Bird Club, and diligently tracked the shifting nesting patterns of Portland’s Vaux’s swifts. We’ve covered owl attacks, crows, and Portland’s city bird (the great blue heron). So when Shay Mirk reached out to us about Birdhers, we were immediately on board. What can we say? We’re birdbrained.