Category: Birds

The Barn Swallows are our favorite annual visitors. They fly up to 7,000 miles on their seasonal migrations between the northern breeding grounds and Central and South America.

They are fearless and creative nest builders, and they will buzz and bomb at anyone who gets too close to the babies, who appeared yesterday or the day before.

The babies make a lot of noise – the Swallows love our pole barn and come there every year – and they make a lot of noise and have big mouths. Even Zip stays away from the Barn Swallows; they’ll fly inches from his head if he gets too close.

Worms beware.

This is one of our favorite rituals.

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Photo by Maria

I’ve become addicted, I admit, to watching the birds outside of the farmhouse in our feeder. Some have become serious about watching me. But mostly, I love watching their speed and the grace of their movement. We are waiting for the next storm, and the one after—a serious winter. I decided to post a Bird Watch this morning.

Maria helped me tame the birds, the first time I’ve done it. Because of the weather, the window is spotted with winter debris. We’ll clean it when the snow melts a bit, which may be a while. We can’t get the ladders up yet because of the snow.

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Sparrow and Tufted Titmouse

Nut Hatch

Blue Jay

I think this is Siegfried the Sparrow watching me as I watch him. We stare at one another for a while. He likes to be alone, but if he has no choice, he’ll take

All kinds of things happen to me when I’m open to them. I think I’m becoming a bird man.

Every morning, when I come into the house and meditate, I look out the window at a flower basket holder. This week, I have another bird friend coming to study me and get to know me.

There must be an association of birds that check out the humans. Siegfried looks through one window on the right, and now this Blue Jay comes and sits on the basket and stares at me. I wonder if they are comparing notes on this strange human.

I am comparing notes on myself. After 10 or 15 minutes of staring, the Blue Jay flies around and takes over the food feeder there, chasing the birds away. Meditating has never been more interesting. Talk about being in the moment.

In her wonderful new book, Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan, a writer and Board Member of the American Bird Conservancy, writes about birding, nature, and the beauty that birds bring to us into plain sight if we only stop and pay attention. The book is smart, funny, charming, and was a great gift from a friend of Maria’s and mine, Kathy Kelly.

I am deep into backyard birds now that I have started paying attention to them; they have me hooked. So does her book.

We have all kinds of birds in and around the farm. I’m getting to know them, but I don’t even want to try to memorize all their names. I do want to get to know them and take their pictures.

A dozen passages have caught my eye and helped me understand what I am saying. I have one bird who stops at the feeder and stares at me for the longest time – just about every morning at 7:30 am, even when it snows and rains.

At first, the birds disappeared when I got too close. Now, I am like family. They come and go as they please, ignoring me, except for Siegfried.

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Siegfried

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I was reading her wonderful chapter about Mystery Birds, the ones that show up, eat, vanish, and show up again.

I’ve called my bird Siegfried. When he sees me, he stops eating and stares. I stare back. Sometimes I blink first, sometimes he does  (like when the Blue Jay gets close and he flees, quickly).)  We have connected in ways I may never understand, but I know we are fascinated by each other. Maybe we can become friends.

In her last chapter in her book, Tan wrote this:

“If there is anything I have learned these past six years, it is this: Each bird is surprising and thrilling in its own way. But the most special bird is the bird that pauses when it is eating, looks and acknowledges I am there, then goes back to what it is doing.”  I was excited to read that. That is what Siegfried is doing, and I agree: it is surprising and thrilling in its own way.

From Tan’s wonderfully illustrated book.

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I love my bird watching. Beautiful birds live all over and around the farm. Siegried and his friends come by every morning, especially when there is snow on the ground, and they take the seeds we hang out. I can’t wait to read the rest of Pan’s book and learn about the backyard birds that have caught my attention. I love my birds and could watch them forever. I post photos of them almost every day.

I stand with the camera just inside the downstairs window and a few inches from the feeder, which is taken down for the summer in May or June. But the birds are here all year.

He stared at me for eight minutes this morning, not bothered by the bitter cold and snow.

Siegfried has been visiting me for weeks now. I feel a connection. I think we might be friends. More later. I wish him luck with the Blue Jay. If I see Zip anywhere around the feeder – it’s up too high for him –  I tap on the window and Zip tries to stare me down. No chance.

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Next up from the book – The Chipmunk – a prized target of Zip. I can’t help but defend them. Chipmunks have a sense of humor, I know it.

Our friend Kathy Kelly, a warrior for good, sent me a book yesterday, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, written and illustrated by Amy Yan, capturing the lives and habits of the world all around us – backyard birds, my new friends. They greet me every morning, and I want to know more about that. I’ll be posting regularly about Amy Tan’s wonderful book. Birds are one thing of many I am eager to learn more about. They fascinate me. I’ll start with the Titmouse who greets me in the wind and stares at me every morning.

“The Oak Titmouse uses all four toes to grasp onto bars and think branches,” writes Tan. “He is born percher and appears to me to be showing off acrobatic upside-down or even sideways perching. He lands on slippery bars, but also feeds on the sill.”

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Me: He seems a serious bird to me, no nonsense, but humanly curious. I think he has come to figure me out; he doesn’t fly away anymore when I pop up in the window with my camera.

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I note these are difficult and frightening times, and I know that and have written about it, but it can’t be something that devours us and cuts us off from nature, life, and the good things about living. There are many. I love birds now, and I love this new book. I’m taking another step forward in learning and understanding life. They can bring sorrow to me, but they cannot kill hope. – jon