The Persistence of Birds
You can learn a lot by sitting on your porch. And I'm talking front porch here--none of that back deck, hide-from-society stuff. (I do have a deck, but it has no shade so that's a problem).
My porch is not huge but just right for lots of flower pots, a glider, and a grill (yes, a grill on the front porch--sort of redneck but we're back to the no shade on the deck again. It's easier to grill in the rain or 95 degrees when the grill is under a shelter.) For those who don't know, a glider is what I call a loveseat that moves back and forth on, you guessed it, the porch.
The other morning I was drinking my coffee and enjoying the coming rain and watching birds. I love to watch birds. Elephants and dogs are the coolest mammals, but birds are fascinating. Every spring some small birds (species I don't know) lay their four or five tiny blue eggs in a nest that they insist on building in a cheesy flower arrangement by my front door. Last year a cat got them, so my husband moved the glider to protect the birds. Unfortunately, this week it fell or was knocked down by wind, and we don't know if the birds, which were just about at fledgling level, made it. We didn't see a profusion of feather lying around, so we hope they escaped if the cat had tried to plunder the nest. We have four or five cats that hang around, and while I think they keep the rodent population down they are a nuisance otherwise and perhaps a rabies hazard. They keep the birds excited, too.
As much as we wanted to protect the baby birds, and as fun as it is to watch them grow, the placement is a problem. If I want to go sit on my porch, the parents fly off and sit in a nearby tree and squawk at me, afraid to come near but not willing to let me drink my coffee and read in peace. And the babies, as they grow, eat, and digest, well, leave a lot of damage, if you get my drift (cleaning that up is my husband's job). No temptation to save that bird's nest here.
Sometimes as I sit I am visited by a hummingbird attracted by my red begonias; those are a treat, if my eye happens to cath them. Their wingspeed is belief-defying. But the other morning as the rain, a good long soaking one that should have washed away fears of drought for now, began, I looked up to see a V of geese, seeming to fly south but really just trying to reposition themselves in the rain. A trio split off from the others while the rest took off to the northwest (directions are hard to figure in the mountains and in suburbville).
Of all things about birds--their nesting, their diet, their beauty, their parenting, their fragility in the face of cats and other predators--I think their migrations amaze me the most. Some migrate all the way from Canada to South America, in a matter of days. They eat bugs they catch in midflight, they don't stop, they find their way--and these are animals that weigh much less than a pound in some instances.
I know I've been told by every source but the church that this is from long evolution, but I fall back on William Blake for insight on animal creation:
TIGER, tiger, burning bright/In the forests of the night,/What immortal hand or eye/
Could frame thy fearful symmetry/
In what distant deeps or skies/Burnt the fire of thine eyes?/On what wings dare he aspire?/
What the hand dare seize the fire?
. . . When the stars threw down their spears,/And water'd heaven with their tears,/
Did He smile His work to see?/Did He who made the lamb make thee?
I can sit on my porch and hear the birds but see none. I feel their presence, I know their keeping of the balance. We're always told that if there were a nuclear disaster, that only the cockroaches would be left. I think the birds would be here, perhaps to eat the cockroaches, because they persist and are so strong despite their seeming smallness and vulnerability.
My porch is not huge but just right for lots of flower pots, a glider, and a grill (yes, a grill on the front porch--sort of redneck but we're back to the no shade on the deck again. It's easier to grill in the rain or 95 degrees when the grill is under a shelter.) For those who don't know, a glider is what I call a loveseat that moves back and forth on, you guessed it, the porch.
The other morning I was drinking my coffee and enjoying the coming rain and watching birds. I love to watch birds. Elephants and dogs are the coolest mammals, but birds are fascinating. Every spring some small birds (species I don't know) lay their four or five tiny blue eggs in a nest that they insist on building in a cheesy flower arrangement by my front door. Last year a cat got them, so my husband moved the glider to protect the birds. Unfortunately, this week it fell or was knocked down by wind, and we don't know if the birds, which were just about at fledgling level, made it. We didn't see a profusion of feather lying around, so we hope they escaped if the cat had tried to plunder the nest. We have four or five cats that hang around, and while I think they keep the rodent population down they are a nuisance otherwise and perhaps a rabies hazard. They keep the birds excited, too.
As much as we wanted to protect the baby birds, and as fun as it is to watch them grow, the placement is a problem. If I want to go sit on my porch, the parents fly off and sit in a nearby tree and squawk at me, afraid to come near but not willing to let me drink my coffee and read in peace. And the babies, as they grow, eat, and digest, well, leave a lot of damage, if you get my drift (cleaning that up is my husband's job). No temptation to save that bird's nest here.
Sometimes as I sit I am visited by a hummingbird attracted by my red begonias; those are a treat, if my eye happens to cath them. Their wingspeed is belief-defying. But the other morning as the rain, a good long soaking one that should have washed away fears of drought for now, began, I looked up to see a V of geese, seeming to fly south but really just trying to reposition themselves in the rain. A trio split off from the others while the rest took off to the northwest (directions are hard to figure in the mountains and in suburbville).
Of all things about birds--their nesting, their diet, their beauty, their parenting, their fragility in the face of cats and other predators--I think their migrations amaze me the most. Some migrate all the way from Canada to South America, in a matter of days. They eat bugs they catch in midflight, they don't stop, they find their way--and these are animals that weigh much less than a pound in some instances.
I know I've been told by every source but the church that this is from long evolution, but I fall back on William Blake for insight on animal creation:
TIGER, tiger, burning bright/In the forests of the night,/What immortal hand or eye/
Could frame thy fearful symmetry/
In what distant deeps or skies/Burnt the fire of thine eyes?/On what wings dare he aspire?/
What the hand dare seize the fire?
. . . When the stars threw down their spears,/And water'd heaven with their tears,/
Did He smile His work to see?/Did He who made the lamb make thee?
I can sit on my porch and hear the birds but see none. I feel their presence, I know their keeping of the balance. We're always told that if there were a nuclear disaster, that only the cockroaches would be left. I think the birds would be here, perhaps to eat the cockroaches, because they persist and are so strong despite their seeming smallness and vulnerability.
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