Nest

Male Cardinal

While the garden is sleeping, we're entertained by the birds. Betsy (my poodle) gets her share of thrills from the birdfeeder, too.  As soon as she sees me picking up my camera, she runs to the window, knowing that the action is picking up. Here are a few photos of this year's visitors.

Blue Jay

Looking for sunflower seeds.

I'm guessing this is a young Song Sparrow 

Female Cardinal

Downy Woodpecker

White-breasted Nuthatch

Watching for poodles on patrol.

European Starling

Male House Sparrow

I read this poem about birdwatching recently and just had to share it. I love what it says about grief, renewal, perseverance and faith.  The idea of being happy with what you have and keeping on when it seems like everyone else is much further along, even if you finish last.  I especially like the line "But when was there suddenly mass?" because it applies so nicely to gardening and seed starting.  Go away for a few days and forget, come back, and there is suddenly mass.  When did that happen?

Nest

A bird was making its nest.
In the dream, I watched it closely:
in my life, I was trying to be
a witness not a theorist

The place you begin doesn't determine
the place you end: the bird

took what it found in the yard,
its base materials, nervously
scanning the bare yard in early spring;
in debris by the south wall pushing
a few twigs with its beak.

Image
of loneliness: the small creature
coming up with nothing. Then
dry twigs. Carrying, one by one,
the twigs to the hideout.
Which is all it was then.

It took what there was:
the available material. Spirit
wasn't enough.

And then it wove like the first Penelope
but toward a different end.
How did it weave? It weaved,
carefully but hopelessly, the few twigs
with any suppleness, any flexibility,
choosing these over the brittle, the
recalcitrant.

Early spring, late desolation.
The bird circled the bare yard making
efforts to survive
on what remained to it.

It had its task:
to imagine the future. Steadily flying around,
patiently bearing small twigs to the solitude
of the exposed tree in the steady coldness
of the outside world.

I had nothing to build with.
It was winter: I couldn't imagine
anything but the past. I couldn't even
imagine the past, if it came to that.

And I didn't know how I came here.
Everyone else much farther along.
I was back at the beginning
at a time in life we can't remember
beginnings.

The bird
collected twigs in the apple tree, relating
each addition to existing mass.
But when was there suddenly mass?

It took what it found after the others
were finished.
The same materials--why should it matter
to be finished last? The same materials, the
same
limited brown. Brown twigs,
broken and fallen. And in one,
a length of yellow wool.

Then it was spring and I was inexplicably
happy.
I knew where I was: on Broadway with my
bag of groceries.
Spring fruit in the stores: first
cherries at Formaggio. Forsythia
beginning.

First I was at peace.
Then I was contented, satisfied.
And then flashes of joy.
And the season changed--for all of us,
of course.

And as I peered out my mind grew sharper.
And I remember accurately
the sequence of my responses,
my eyes fixing on each thing
from the shelter of the hidden self:

first I love it.
Then, I can use it.


Louise Gluck, Poetry, “Nest,” The New Yorker, February 8, 1999, p. 56

The Chickadee Brain

Are you also the type of person who, in this age of information overload, tucks tidbits of interest into the files of your brain, intending to follow up on them later?   Only to forget until something occurs to jostle the memory files?    Maybe I need a brain more like that of the chickadee, expanding and contracting and adapting as needed by the season. 

So the black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) are back at the feeders, and so is my memory of  reading something extraordinary about the chickadee brain last year  and wanting to investigate.  Of all the wild birds that visit,  the chickadees seem to be the most fearless and friendly.  In fact, they’re often the only ones that aren’t afraid to approach even after I’ve appeared on the deck, pointing a camera at them.   Frustratingly, they are also among the quickest and most reluctant to pose. 

Research done by Professor Colin Saldanha, now at American University, showed that the chickadee’s brain can grow up to 30% larger during times when they need to find food for storage.  The brain is expanding, adding new nerve cells,  in order to help them remember the hundreds of hiding places where they’ve stored the food.  Then, in the spring, the brain shrinks back to normal size, when their memories are needed less.

Another study, done by Vladamir Pradosudov at University of Nevada in Reno showed that when birds live in harsher conditions, such as Alaska, they not only find more food than those in milder climates, but they’re better at finding their caches, have better spatial memories, and have larger brains than the same species in Colorado. 

I would never say that I want my brain to shrink, but wouldn’t mind being able to shed some of the mental baggage and unproductive ways of thinking that marked the past year.  Out with the old, in with the new!  Make room for more meshugaas!  

Wishing you an open-minded, peaceful and rejuvenating New Year.

Your Average Backyard Bird



Dark-eyed Junco with snowy beak

European Starling

Once the snow hits, and the ground is inaccessible, the action at the feeders really picks up. That means the best time of year for bird watching has begun! The Audubon Society’s Great Backyard Bird Count was set up to help track wild bird populations. It helps scientists figure out which species are surging in numbers and which might be declining. They can also track their patterns of migration and determine the effects of urbanization, climate change and disease. Last year 594 species were represented, 92,000 lists were submitted, and over 11.4 million birds were counted! On their website, you can see lists of the most populous birds in the country, or break it down locally. Last year, these were the most common birds in the Nyack area:

1) European Starling
2) American Goldfinch
3) House Sparrow
4) House Finch
5) Junco
6) White Throated Sparrow
7) Crow
8) Mourning Dove
9) Northern Cardinal
10) Blue Jay/Turkey Vulture/Chickadee (tie)



Red-bellied Woodpecker



White-throated Sparrow

Maybe you're wondering how Nyack compares to the rest of the Northeast? Here are the most populous birds last year in the Mid-Atlantic, East Central, Northeast, Great Lakes, Allegheny and Atlantic Canada regions, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

1) Chickadee
2) Dark-eyed Junco
3) Mourning Dove
4) Downy Woodpecker
5) Blue Jay
6) American Goldfinch
7) Northern Cardinal
8) White-breasted Nuthatch
9) House Finch
10) Tufted Titmouse

By conducting our own hyper-local bird count, we can see what the most common birds are in our own backyards and compare our results with our neighbor's. Do you have more Blue Jays than Juncos? More Chickadees or more Woodpeckers? I did an informal count of the birds at my feeder this past weekend, and made a list of the most popular birds. It ended up being much different from their's:

1) House Sparrow
2) Dark Eyed Junco
3) Blue Jay
4) Tufted Titmouse
5) White Throated Sparrow
6) Chickadee
7) White-breasted Nuthatch
8) Downy Woodpecker
9) Red Bellied Woodpecker
10) Mourning Dove

 

Downy Woodpecker

I’ve only had a few transient European Starlings visit, though it’s the top bird nationally. I rarely see Northern Cardinals and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen an American Goldfinch. What about you? How do these lists stack up to yours?

Go to the Great Backyard BirdCount site and sign up for this year’s count, running February 17 – 22.





Mourning Dove