Beth
01-09-2010, 10:43 AM
There are few things that thrill me as much as playing with the birds in our backyard. It’s a tender kind of play, a shy courtship. I am their secret admirer who leaves precious gifts tucked about and then steals away to watch from my hiding place. I chuckle at their antics, stretching and bobbling to reach the seeds and butters. They delight my heart, each her own self unwavering in her habits and ways: nervous titmouse who snatches and flees, patient cardinal alone in a tree, clumsy starling knocking about, sparrow and company dash in and then out. More snow is falling. Soft single flakes drift down against the dark green wall of huge evergreens. My watching always leads to wondering and I know there is teaching and learning in this, too. Why is there joy here? I believe it is the space between. The space between the snowflakes that lets my eyes follow a single tiny white speck on its falling, rising, spinning spiral down to the sea of white below . The space between the trees and seeds that creates the feathered dance of flight. The space between the birds and me without holding or touch, trusting it is more than enough this giving and taking and delighting. Learning to see and to love this space between.
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Christmas is for the Birds
We are lucky to live where we do. The house is solid and homey and sits up on a ridge across from a creek and a park. It is green even in winter. The cedar, pine, and the spruce comfort me with their layers of thickness that channel the rain down and away. And I know they shelter the songbirds who dart about our backyard. We fill the feeders most every day for our own entertainment, and as a thanks for their presence. I was curious, then, when the feeders remained full for several days. Where were they? I sat at the kitchen table tucked into the bay window that looks over the backyard. It was the birds’ usual feeding time, but except for a few woodpeckers, no one came to eat.
Maybe they could be enticed with some peanut butter and seed. So, Olivia, Michaela, and I made pinecone, peanut butter, and seed feeders and hung them around. A few more days, and still no visitors. What is it? I thought of Rachel Carson and her seminal work on the effects of DDT and other pesticides on birds and wildlife 50 years ago in Silent Spring. Would I even know, would I even notice such a shift?
Christmas Eve, I was standing at the kitchen sink when an enormous flock of crows ( I cannot mark them with “murder”) swarmed our backyard, and our neighbors’ to the south and the east. A few outliers lit in the oak tree outside the kitchen window and in the huge maple at the back of the yard while the rest circled and cawed. Suddenly, a flash of white underwing larger than the blackbirds’ in the middle of the circling mass. The gang of crows flushed a hawk from his perch in one of our neighbor’s trees, surrounded him and herded him away. I thought for certain that the crows would return to eat from our feeders, but they did not. For what intention, then, their guardian flight? Soon, then, and happily, the little songbirds were at home again, darting from their safe places to the feeders and back, lingering in the grass and snow below the feeders, the nuthatches perched upside down on the oak tree. A Holiday gift from the crows to others living in flight. And a gift to me as well.
*********
Christmas is for the Birds
We are lucky to live where we do. The house is solid and homey and sits up on a ridge across from a creek and a park. It is green even in winter. The cedar, pine, and the spruce comfort me with their layers of thickness that channel the rain down and away. And I know they shelter the songbirds who dart about our backyard. We fill the feeders most every day for our own entertainment, and as a thanks for their presence. I was curious, then, when the feeders remained full for several days. Where were they? I sat at the kitchen table tucked into the bay window that looks over the backyard. It was the birds’ usual feeding time, but except for a few woodpeckers, no one came to eat.
Maybe they could be enticed with some peanut butter and seed. So, Olivia, Michaela, and I made pinecone, peanut butter, and seed feeders and hung them around. A few more days, and still no visitors. What is it? I thought of Rachel Carson and her seminal work on the effects of DDT and other pesticides on birds and wildlife 50 years ago in Silent Spring. Would I even know, would I even notice such a shift?
Christmas Eve, I was standing at the kitchen sink when an enormous flock of crows ( I cannot mark them with “murder”) swarmed our backyard, and our neighbors’ to the south and the east. A few outliers lit in the oak tree outside the kitchen window and in the huge maple at the back of the yard while the rest circled and cawed. Suddenly, a flash of white underwing larger than the blackbirds’ in the middle of the circling mass. The gang of crows flushed a hawk from his perch in one of our neighbor’s trees, surrounded him and herded him away. I thought for certain that the crows would return to eat from our feeders, but they did not. For what intention, then, their guardian flight? Soon, then, and happily, the little songbirds were at home again, darting from their safe places to the feeders and back, lingering in the grass and snow below the feeders, the nuthatches perched upside down on the oak tree. A Holiday gift from the crows to others living in flight. And a gift to me as well.