pre-Spring in the North Country?

I've commented several times that one of the hardest things to see is what isn't there. Just over the past few days I've noticed an absence of American goldfinches at the feeder. Thinking back, it's been several weeks or more since I remember seeing any.

The Cornell Ornithology Lab tells us goldfinches are common year round where we live. Similar information is published on the Audubon Society's web site.

Irregular in migration, with more remaining in North in winters with good food supply. Peak migration is usually mid-fall and early spring, ...

The Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas provides slightly more description, but it's no more probative regarding migration.

Northern populations are short-distance migrants that winter in the southern United States and northern Mexico; southern populations are year-round residents. Some birds are present year-round in Minnesota and are likely permanent residents.

goldfinches and chickadee at February feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

Based on prior years' photos, goldfinches have been at our feeders in February. Returned migrants? Or, might it be that the feeders they prefer have individual perches built in. I'll fill one of those after posting this and see if any goldfinch magically appear.

goldfinches, et alii, February feeders

Photo by J. Harrington

Once upon a time I considered late January and February to be the depths of Winter. I'm much happier acting as if they're a pre-Spring season, time to prepare for the real thing. Unless you're a die-hard Winter lover, try thinking we're now in the pre-Spring season. You might like it!

Fall

Didi Jackson

          Do you know what I was, how I lived?

                     —Louise Glück

It is a goldfinch
one of the two

small girls,
both daughters

of a friend,
sees hit the window

and fall into the fern.
No one hears

the small thump but she,
the youngest, sees

the flash of gold
against the mica sky

as the limp feathered envelope
crumples into the green.

How many times
in a life will we witness

the very moment of death?
She wants a box

and a small towel
some kind of comfort

for this soft body
that barely fits

in her palm. Its head
rolling side to side,

neck broke, eyes still wet
and black as seed.

Her sister, now at her side,
wears a dress too thin

for the season,
white as the winter

only weeks away.
She wants me to help,

wants a miracle.
Whatever I say now

I know weighs more
than the late fall’s

layered sky,
the jeweled leaves

of the maple and elm.
I know, too,

it is the darkest days
I’ve learned to praise —

the calendar packages up time,
the days shrink and fold away

until the new season.
We clothe, burn,

then bury our dead.
I know this;

they do not.
So we cover the bird,

story its flight,
imagine his beak

singing.
They pick the song

and sing it
over and over again.

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