inches & finches: another layer of winter . . .

. . . four white inches and counting. The birds that had been away scouting easy food on the land for 10 days are back and gorging at the feeders. I counted 30 finches at this one maple tree alone. There weren't any perches left for this amazing hanging goldfishfinch. A split second later he was clutching the tree bark waiting his turn. I get the feeling the other finches are looking at him like "wow, how do you do that?" I know I was.

These three - American tree sparrow, goldfinch and downy woodpecker - managed to share the tower. How's that for Love Day behavior?

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disappointment

I drove to the store for birdseed - black oiler sunflower seeds to attract cardinals, and wild bird seed for whatever other birds might be around. I brushed eight inches of snow off the bench in the middle of the meadow and scattered birdseed on and around it.

I set up Don's little deer blind tent near the bench (the red camouflage thing you can't see, above), mounted the camera on the tripod inside, opened the zipper window enough for the camera lens to stick out, focused it on the small tree behind the bench, and waited. I was going to get some stellar close-ups with my new zoom lens of cardinals, or something. I sat on a chair inside, layered in warm clothes and a fleece blanket wrapped around my legs. Oh, and I brought a banana, Oreo cookies and Gatorade. As I say, I waited for the sweet birdies that were sure to light on the pile of seeds for a mid-winter treat. Free food on display! 

Below is the view I could see out of the tiny opening, of the poplars behind the pond. Occasionally clumps of snow fell from the trees, and I jumped (erm, I mean I would have jumped if I'd been moving) thinking a bird had knocked off the snow. But it was only the sun trying to warm things up a bit that made the snow shift off branches. It was around 17 F (-8 C).

If I had the other three flaps of the tent open (I didn't since I wanted to keep the wind out), I'd see this view to the left - the 15-foot sumac and Don's barn. The as-yet-unpainted corner door in the lower left hiding behind the sumac is the door to the chicken coop. Strange how the snow had slid off the black roof in three patches:

. . . this view to my right, of the deer's piney bedroom:

. . . and this view of the neighbor's black walnuts out the back:

In an hour and a half of sitting there, trying not to move or make a sound, I saw birds but only at a distance. They didn't even discover the birdseed. Well, it was a new spot for it.

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I started shivering, and so I decided to go in. I'll try again. As Peter said when I came in chilled and disappointed, the TV series Planet Earth took five years to film 11 episodes. They sometimes waited and watched hundreds of hours resulting in one video clip.
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I need patience. And I need to develop an expectation in the birds that seed will be at this spot consistently. If I don't disappoint them, maybe they won't disappoint me.-

I processed the image above at picnik.com with the lomo filter.

For breathtaking snow photographs, please visit Vincent Munier's site. His book White Nature has inspired me to work on snow photography.

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starling symphony

Serendipity led me out to the garage to fetch my camera from the car. I was going to take an indoor photo for this blog, so I slid open the deck door and was immediately amazed by a phenomenal sound: a starling symphony. Not a startling symphony, although I guess you'd have to call it that too.

Once before, Don and I heard the starlings flock and gather in the trees around the farm. The blended assortment of squeaks, whistles and squawks is unlike anything else I've experienced. As wiki says, their song is a mix of "mimicry, clicks, wheezes, chattering, whistles, rattles, and piping notes." Imagine that times a thousand.


Starlings are famous for traveling in flocks, even when they're not migrating. They are not native to North America, and my father-in-law tells me they are a problem because they have few predators. Apparently they don't taste good, and hawks don't like eating them. So their numbers continue to grow, making these flocks more and more vast.

click on the photos to enlarge and see the birds just a little bit better

Within five minutes they were ready to leave. I'm assuming they were migrating south, although they disappeared into the northeast when they flew away beyond the poplars.

Common Starling

Sturnus vulgaris

Please watch this five and a half minute video of starlings at Ot Moor, England, by Dylan Winter, in aerobatics in which they miraculously form a moving fabric of birds undulating and maneuvering without colliding. My experience this week did not quite get to this expanded dance:

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after

After days of fits and outbursts
from sky to ground . . .

. . . light softened into evening,

and I was healed,

I adjusted . . .

. . . as if an angry word had never been spoken.

The torn tree still lies in sawed pieces. The honeybees still swarm around their hive in the fallen limb. The leaves on the standing remnant bend in the breeze.

I bend with nature, I submit - holding on, like a spider on a blade of grass.

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swallowtail

Mid-spring (now), two large flowering shrubs/trees bloom. The white one is a mock orange, whose light, delicate blossoms emit a heavy fragrance.

The pink one is a, um, I don't know what it is. I can smell no discernable scent, although Don can.

















In our yard, these trees are not visible to each other.

They stand about 200 feet apart, on either side of the house.

Every year the swallowtail butterflies make a frenzied path between them, drinking, drinking, drinking. Such immoderation.

First at the mock orange.

Then at the, um, whatever-it-is-pink tree.









Each swallowtail adult lives about one month. There are 500 species of swallowtail. You can see one of them here is predominantly yellow, while the other is black.

I just added this different swallowtail to show another color combination:

I never knew that a gentleman's cutaway coat is called a swallowtail.

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twins

Two fawns have made themselves at home in our yard. We're pretty sure they are orphans, because there is no doe with them.

They plopped down in the front yard in the afternoon yesterday.

But I am worried about them getting hit by a car, with no mom to teach them caution.

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Opening the door to happiness

Ok, that last post was nice, and happy.

But this one, this is . . . well, it’s just CRAZY!

It’s Friday, coming close to the end of my week off at home. I’m sitting on the couch with my laptop, working on the photos from my spontaneous trip to Holland yesterday. Through the deck screen door I’m listening to the sounds of birds singing, chirping, hollering, and the blue jays scampering across the deck to the cat food.

Then I realize, some of the scratching and scraping I hear is NOT the blue jays on the deck. It’s closer than that. And I start remembering the story Peter told of being here alone once and hearing a noise in the wood stove. He opened it, and a bird flew out right in his face! Scared the living daylights out of him (Peter, and the bird too, I'm sure).

So, I’m wiser! I know there must be a bird in the wood stove. I grab my camera (ha!), slide open the screen door to the deck so the bird can get out when I release him, step over to the side of the wood stove so I’m not in front of the door and turn open the handle.

Out fly – FLY – not one bird, but TWO! And as they flutter around the room to every window except the open screen door, I begin to understand that these are not just wrens or finches or grackles. These are BLUEBIRDS!

Bluebirds. BLUEBIRDS! Not blue jays. Bluebirds.

This illustration is a blue jay, not a bluebird.

I had never in my life seen a bluebird until we bought the farm in 2003. We saw our first pair in the juniper tree that November, and I knew what a treat it was. They are shy and rarely seen, and they are such a beautiful blue, they quickly became my favorite birds. The female is dusty blue, the male bright royal blue.

You must understand the significance of birds for me. From the time I was young, I have not been comfortable around animals. We did not have pets in our home. Birds have been the only animals I have related to in any personal sense, and over the years, they have come into my poetry in titles such as “Bird Song,” “Migrating,” and “Flying to Uncle Jimmie’s Funeral.” Even my photoblog I named “flying.”

Soon after spotting my first bluebirds at the farm, their meaning deepened for me. Visitations by bluebirds and associations with Krishnamurti, my throat chakra, and speaking the truth were apparent through some experiences I can only call metaphysical. I have left religion behind. But I have had such synchronicities that I can’t help but feel we are multi-dimensional beings. I don’t know what to make of them, and I don’t try to overanalyze them. I just accept them appreciatively, because I feel I have been touched by Life in a way that shows we are all special, along with all of nature. And we are connected with everyone and everything.

So, ok, a male and a female bluebird fly into the chimney of our thankfully-not-burning wood stove. They peck around in there until I pay attention. They fly into our house. They sit on our window sills.

They are terrified and can’t find the open door and window out. They bang against the closed windows, shocking themselves even more than I have already done.

I find each of them huddled in different corners of the house. They can't get out on their own. Carefully, tenderly, I take the male into into my hand, he doesn't even resist, he is so shocked, and let him out the front window. When I locate the female, I try to do the same, but she resists. I finally take her gently in my hand and set her free off the side porch.

The female flies away immediately. But the male sits on the porch as if he is wounded. That terrifies me. What have I done . . . to a bluebird? All the time the words are repeating in my head “You have injured the bluebird of happiness. What have you done!”



As I approach him one last time, he flies to the wire! Happy day!

I hope he is uninjured.

I wonder what this encounter means, to me, to the birds. Will they be more cautious and shy than ever? Or are we more connected than before?

My animal spirit guide book, on the bluebird page, says of seeing a bluebird, “This is a very rare and precious moment, so open up all your senses and simply enjoy this time.”

I have touched a bluebird, held it in my hand. Two of them. I don’t even know how to hold this in my heart.

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Animal tracks

The snow will soon be gone, and it will be harder to see animal tracks.

In our back yard, we have deer, possum, raccoon, coyotes, rabbits, woodchucks/groundhogs, skunks, bluebirds, bluejays, cardinals, titmouse, junkos, various finches, various woodpeckers, crows, hawks, kestrels, bobwhite, wild turkeys, various flickers, indigo buntings, bats, turkey buzzards, mourning doves, pheasants, foxes, red squirrels, pine squirrels, chipmunks, moles, field mice, voles, a feral cat, a barn cat, and doubtless many animals we haven't seen or chronicled.

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Flap your wings

See this butterfly? He was flipping and flapping so eratically around the zinnias yesterday, I didn't think the camera would focus on him. See how tattered his wings are? His right one is almost half gone after a season of flapping.

Yesterday I read in Tolle his comparison of humans and ducks.

"When two ducks get into a fight, which never lasts long, they will separate and float off in opposite directions. Then each duck will flap its wings vigorously a few times, thus releasing the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After they flap their wings, they float on peacefully, as if nothing had ever happened."

"If the duck had a human mind . . ." Tolle writes on, and you can fill in the rest. He'd start thinking and analyzing the situation, hold a grudge for next time, maybe for years to come, etc.

So the point is, be more like a duck, flap your wings and let go of the story!

Visit Paris Deconstructed for a new post about my favorite resting place in Paris.

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