Yesterday we had a number of what I believe were warblers hopping around the back yard. For reasons that aren’t clear to me, I’ve seen so few warblers over the years that I haven’t really paid much attention to identification and I’m not enough of a birder to have a life list. That said, I think there may have been a Bell’s Vireo and a Yellow-rumped Warbler Myrtle among the usual suspects checking out the feeders and the ground thereunder.
a mixed bag of birds
Photo by J. Harrington
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Today we saw the first blossoms in the front flower garden. The Better half tells me that helebores and scilla are the culprits that have the effrontery to bloom while the back yard pond still develops overnight ice cover.
A couple of young fellows asked permission to hunt turkeys at the edge of our property. They made me realize how unseasonably cold the spring has been for an extended period. I’m glad I’m not trying to hunt in the weather we’ve been having. Working a turkey call or trying to align a head shot while shivering severely is not a productive situation. Funny, though, I’d probably consider the recent weather at the warm end for duck hunting.
That’s about it for today. At least I’m not a fan of Minnesota’s professional sports teams. This spring that would definitely be likely to add insult to injuries such as frost bite.
For the Birds
By John Shoptaw
For the abundant along with the rare birds at my feeder of lateFor all kinds of birds I’ve lived with here are turning rarerFor the chestnut-backed chickadee, who carries her sunflower chip to the buckthorn to dine on between her toesFor the chickadees once came to my feeder in bunchesFor the big round plain brown pair of California towhees who eat in parallel from the bird-crumb tableFor though they crumb it clean without a glance or a cheep, I believe this remote old couple is as entwined as any two polarized photonsFor the fearsome indigo Steller’s jays, black hooded and crested, Tapper and Sly, as I call themFor Tapper taps twice on an overhanging plum branch at two clucks from my tongue so I’ll know himFor Sly hangs back and shrieks me over and only shows himself after I place on the table their morning quincunx of unsalted peanutsFor he knows Tapper will quack to announce them and then squawk indignantly when he slyly swoops inFor the vast majorityFor the dark-eyed juncos, the wide-eyed titmice, the narrow-eyed redbreasted nuthatches, who feed right-side up as they see it, the other birds upside downFor Audubon’s yellow-rumped, Wilson’s and Townsend’s warblers, nobody’s birds, who feed, drink and breed as they canFor the song sparrow’s song and the sparrow who exults in singing itFor a song—how long will that phrase mean what it meansFor them all I refill the feeder, even this morning, when all blown-down things crackle underfoot and the Diablo wind seems to growl diabolically and scrape from all corners at once against a sky the color of flintFor the lesser goldfinches, symbolically fierce, who part their beaks at any other kind who would peck a chip in their presenceFor the pine siskins, their symbolic match, who used to expose their underwings back at them with its dreadful yellow stripeFor two years running, no siskins at the feederFor the brown-crowned, as-yet-unkindled sparrows, wintering from Oregon or the Farallon Islands, I sing my two-note welcome, hel-low, pointlessFor they won’t learn it with my face masked against wild smoke migrating from the northFor the species too little or big or otherwise unsuited for the feederFor Anna’s hummingbirds, who love to suck on our pineapple sageFor the red-tailed hawk perched in the smoke-fogged redwoodFor soon it’ll be pestered by a twister of crows cawing hawkawkawkawkawFor a red-tailed hawk I mistook it—something larger, ruffled moltenFor the golden eagle it turned out to be—weird—hunched in the chillFor another flew up out of thick air and followed it south out of eyeshotFor those two—not migrants—evacuees clasping their emotional baggageFor the birds, then, what have I to offerFor what kind of refuge is my catalogFor I can’t reckon how to make good their lossesFor I meant not to make a life list I meantFor others to partake in my pleasureFor it pleases me to look after the birds
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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.
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