Bird Stories

Provision

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

Provision is the title of the prose poem I share here, originally written to a nature prompt on Ethical ELA’s Open Write. A poet-friend suggested turning it into haibun by adding haiku at the end…Voilà.

It is July. The hummingbirds are drinking a whole feeder of sugar water a day. My friends say they have no hummingbirds this year and I joke that they are all coming to me. My granddaughters try to help me count, but, in all the frenetic zoomings from window to crape myrtle and every which way, we lose track: Is it seven? Ten? We cannot be sure, even though every bird has different markings. Most are female. One silvery girl has a red dot at her throat. This is somewhat rare, research reveals. I have taken to calling her The Princess. She was here last year. She has come home again to her own realm and it is my great pleasure to serve her.  A documentary tells me that every day of life is a combat zone for hummingbirds. I already know this; I am eyewitness to their fierce competition for food. I am occasionally startled by the sound of a tiny body slamming against the window—THUNK! — where the feeder hangs. How is it so loud? How does the body-slammed bird not die? The hummingbird’s awareness and aerial acrobatics are astonishing. Once in a while, a male finds his way to the feeder, his brilliant ruby-throat like nothing else in nature, as long as the light is right. His jewel-fire turns black in shadows. The women soon drive him away. They rule the feeder. I see females sometimes picking near-invisible insects off of its red plastic flowers, likely to carry to their young. I am thinking some of these birds hatched here in our trees last year. We have never had this many before. It is not hummingbird nature to “bring your friends.” They do not have friends. They are individuals. Loners. Warriors. As fierce and resilient as anything in the animal kingdom. They are, in their way, mightier than eagles. And they know me. I step outside to a helicopteresque whirrrr accompanied by loud chips and chitterings…food’s gone! they say, so hurry up, hurry UP. A bird hovers nearby as I rehang the feeder full of fresh, cool sugar-water, condensation already running down the glass, gleaming in the light. They are back at it before I can open the door to go inside. I do not expect their gratitude. Their love. Their allegiance. None of that is possible in this life. Their beauty and perseverance, their very presence, is enough. They perch on the twig-branches of the pines out back whenever I am on the deck, nearly indistinguisable from the pinecones. They are watching me, these tiny winged wonders of sublime iridescence and supreme intelligence. They know me. It is more than enough. 

The battle is Yours
—I trust Your sweet provision,
grace in every drop.

The white feather

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

On a recent Sunday morning I pulled into the church parking lot, got out of my car, and found it lying right there at my feet.

A white feather.

Just one. No others anywhere in sight.

Now, I know there are legends about solitary white feathers and loved ones and guardian angels…I really didn’t have time to think about all that just then. Choir practice was starting and I had a Bible lesson to teach. No time to waste… I am not going to over-spiritualize this. I’ll figure out later where this feather came from…and I hurried into the church.

I promptly forgot about the feather.

Until, several Sundays later, when I was leaving the church and there, on the sidewalk right in front of me, was another white feather.

Now, I know there’s a law about not picking up bird feathers…but I couldn’t help myself.

I needed to know.

I took it to my husband, pastor of the church.

He was sitting at his desk in the study.

“Have you been seeing white feathers like this around here?” I asked, holding out the feather in my palm.

If he said no…I might have to consider those legends. Was I the only person finding a white feather — on two occasions now?

If he said yes…what kind of bird is shedding these feathers around the church? And why?

My husband barely glanced at the feather.

“Yes,” he said, finishing a note he was writing. “It’s from Mr. H.’s feather duster. He shakes it outside after he’s done cleaning on Saturdays.”

Glad I didn’t over-spiritualize…

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the March Slice of Life Story Challenge

Birdlove legacy

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

If you’ve read my blog for a bit, you know I love birds.

It’s an inherited love.

Or maybe a contagious love.

Either way: I got it from my grandmother.

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on her lap as she read to me, and one of the books was about birds and their nests. From shelves on her apartment walls, bird figurines looked over us like sentinels. Silent witnesses. “Ornaments,” she called them. One resembled a pair of robins. She lifted me up countless times to peer into their ceramic nest, to marvel at the baby bird inside:

This vintage 1960s figurine is exactly like Grandma’s. Her “ornament” went to someone else in the family but I found this one online a couple of weeks ago. It’s in perfect condition and now sits atop Grandma’s piano in my living room.

There’s another I hadn’t thought about in a while…until my recent sightings of bald eagles, to my great awe and consolation during a brief time of despair.

Grandma had an eagle ornament…whatever became of it?

I texted my aunt.

She has it. She told me that Grandma wrote on the underside: One of my favorites!

My aunt texted this photo. She said: The eagle is yours.

An unexpected, deeply meaningful gift. I am learning that the eagle comes out of the blue, when needed most. Even in my dreams. This past week I dreamed of taking a journey and high in the trees along the roadside were eagles’ nests; I could see white heads above the rims, peering down. Even in the dreamworld, I was awestruck. I woke feeling rested and strengthened. And watched over.

My granddaughters haven’t seen my bird nest ornament yet, and Grandma’s eagle is a way off still. But every spring, my girls stand beside me, marveling over the hummingbirds at the feeder. We watch Mama and Papa Bluebird darting in and out of the birdhouse with insects in their beaks, feeding hungry babies. I’ve held my granddaughters up to see real baby house finches in the nest on the wreath of my front door…which won’t happen this season, as the wreath has been removed. Micah learned to mimic me around age two, when I held her in my arms at the kitchen window; putting her tiny finger to her lips, she’d whisper: Shhh. Watch. Birds.

She is three now. She will remember.

Just as I do.

For a moment, I see Grandma’s smile, radiant as springtime sun. I feel her arms lifting me up for the wonder of seeing that baby bird in its ceramic nest, with its parents standing guard.

And I am quite sure I hear a faint rustling of wings, nearby.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the March Slice of Life Story Challenge

Absence

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

As many of you know, I write a lot about birds.

Every March, I write specifically about the house finches which build a nest in my front door wreath. They have done this for years, except for 2020 during COVID-19, strangely. They built a nest in the wreath that year but never laid eggs.

This year my husband put his foot down: Enough. We haven’t been able to open our front door or enjoy our porch every spring and summer since I don’t know when. Don’t let the birds build a nest in that wreath.

I knew a pair of little finches had been already been eyeing it, however. I have heard them “talking” out there on the porch in their singsong voices. They didn’t seem to like this wreath, really: it’s a winter one, still up from Christmastime.

I should have taken it down a while back. I knew better than to put out a spring wreath, for, against my husband’s wishes, it would become a finch nursery. I would be a frenzied Franna again, roping off the porch to keep the babies safe. I wasn’t always successful. Some babies died in the nest, and I grieved as I removed it. The parents carried on, rebuilding in no time, laying more eggs.

Naure is astoundingly resilient.

I’d also take the granddaughters out for an occasional up-close glimpse of tiny new life coming into the world. I would marvel at the parents’ unfailing care of their young. I would hear their songs, the most beautiful trills and warbles. It’s a pure, sweet, glorious song. The sound of joy.

Yesterday I noticed that the finches had started a nest in the wreath…they are so stealthy about it!

Today my husband took the wreath down (because I couldn’t).

I understand. I do. It’s a pain to keep the front of the house roped off for months – yes, months – at a time, for these prolific little songbirds.

Yet it always felt like a gift, to have them here and to provide shelter for them, so that more beauty could fly out into the world.

I am bracing myself for the finch’s discovery of the disappeared wreath. They planned on having their babies there. I do not think I can bear the sound of their sweet voices asking Why?

But as yet, there is no sound from the porch. The sun is very bright this morning, and I hear all sort of birds in the distance.

I expect my finches will rapidly find another place to build. I pray they do. The world needs more of these little creatures who were never supposed to have survived in the first place. House finches were released in the wild years ago by unscrupulous pet shop owners. The house finch didn’t die out; it proliferated.

It’s just that, in this moment, the silence, their absence, is an ache in my heart.

There’s no way to tell the finches that I am sorry. Or how much I love them. Not so they’d understand.

And so I write.

What I know is…no matter what, they go on, singing.

House finch pair. Birdman of Beaverton. CC BY-SA 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the March Slice of Life Story Challenge

Bird’s head

/ Fran Haley / 21 Comments

The morning of January 28. Almost seven o’clock. Driving to work in the lowest spirits I’ve had in a long time.

Several factors contribute to this. Usually I can find ways to redirect my thinking, but this morning I cannot. Tired, melancholy, self-worth ebbing…I don’t have strength to face the workday.

Driving past barren fields, icy ponds, old tobacco barns, and rural homes with white smoke rising from chimneys, I say aloud, “God, I could really use encouragement today.”

Rounding the next bend, I see a lone tree in the otherwise empty field. In the naked branches of the tree sits an enormous buzzard, its back to me.

I amost pay it no mind, except to think That’s a really big bird.

Just as I am passing, the bird turns its head in my direction…oh, what I’d have missed if I hadn’t been looking!

Stunned, I begin to cry.

Sometime later I capture the moment in a double etheree:

Bird’s Head

My
prayer
is for strength
as I drive round
the bend in the road
where a lone, lifeless tree
stands stripped in a barren field.
Perched there in those gnarled old branches
is a huge buzzard. It turns its head
just as I pass…a white head, shining like
fresh snow in sunlight, brilliant to blinding
…a bald eagle, enduring winter,
keeping watch high above the earth.
Jolted by this fierce response
I drive onward, sobbing
for the provision,
newfound courage
singing wild
in my
veins.

An old eagle sketch of mine

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the March Slice of Life Story Challenge

Note: The eagle was still in the tree that afternoon and over the next couple of days. I’ve learned that eagles do this in winter, to conserve energy. Its presence was exactly the energizing spark I needed to rise above: “Courage, dear heart…”

Ominous?

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

One Sunday morning
atop the fellowship hall
sat two black buzzards

holding up their wings
like unholy cherubim
like some ancient sign

of impending doom
(Woe to all who enter here!)
except that I know

a couple of things:
see, buzzards hold out their wings
for the sun’s cleansing

not as harbingers
of death (unless one counts the
zapped bacteria)

Sunday, December 8, 2024: The sight when I pulled into the church parking lot. The buzzards (black vultures) remained motionless atop the fellowship hall, disinfecting their wings in the bright sunlight, until the parking lot got too people-y for them and they flew off. Gotta admit this looks ominous, like something out of Poe or painted on the wall of an ancient tomb. Black buzzards are, however, “highly social birds with fierce family loyalty,” says the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. No wonder the church fellowship hall was so appealing to them for their own sun-day.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the March Slice of Life Story Challenge

Hark: the hawk

/ Fran Haley / 31 Comments

haiku for the king of our backyard sky:

from on high: the cry
this kingdom is mine mine mine
hear ye, hear ye, all

Our resident red-shouldered hawk was staking its territorial claim on Monday morning. If you look closely at the large tree branches in the center of the video frame, you will find it perched above the “play” arrow. The cry starts at 14-15 seconds in.

I think of hawk symbolism. I will include it below, because it’s fascinating, especially since I am sharing this with a community of writers taking on a daily challenge; I marvel at how much seems especially applicable. I will say that for me the hawk’s wild cry evokes something within that I cannot quite name. A longing, I think. Maybe to rise above the world with clearer vision. Maybe to have been an ancient warrior along green woodland paths, following the king’s bird. Maybe to respond, living thing to living thing, in natural communion as apparently existed before Genesis 9, when animals began to fear people. And, I daresay, likewise. Loss unimaginable.

As I wrote in yesterday’s post: I watch birds and am awed by the way they know and “read” so much. Instinct, you say. Well, of course. And extraordinary intelligence, I must add.

Here’s what artificial intelligence has to offer on red-shouldered hawk symbolism (do a search; this comes up with links):

The red-shouldered hawk can symbolize a variety of things, including guidance, strength, and the ability to see the bigger picture.

Guidance

  • A red-shouldered hawk can be a messenger from the universe, bringing support and insight 
  • It can be a sign that you should trust yourself and your inner wisdom 
  • It can be a reminder to explore the unknown and take risks to reach your goals 

Strength 

  • Hawks can represent strength, focus, and poise
  • They can show you your hidden abilities to lead yourself and others

Seeing the bigger picture

  • Hawks can help you see the bigger picture and avoid getting caught up in small details 
  • They can help you elevate your perspective and activate your inner sight 

Connection to the spirit realm 

  • A red-shouldered hawk can signify a powerful connection to the spirit realm

Vision 

  • The Cherokee believed that red-shouldered hawks are messengers of vision
  • They believed that when you see a red-shouldered hawk, whatever you were thinking about at the time is happening around you

Across cultures, hawks have been used to convey teachings and wisdom.

—There you have it, writer-friends. Hearken unto the calling.

Meanwhile, I know that as I stand watching this magnificent bird, it is watching me, with considerably less awe. I am simply on its turf.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge.
This is my ninth year participating alongside fellow teacher-writers.

Glorious

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

Last Friday, in preparation for the advancing winter storm, our school system dismissed three hours early.

This gift, so to speak, would take an unexpected and exponential turn.

Driving along brine-dusted backroads many thoughts crowded my mind…concerns about work, about people in my life who are facing battles…all I really wanted was to get home, to rest, to feel hopeful for a little snow, as we’d gone over a thousand days without any measurable snowfall. My granddaughter Micah, age three, has only seen flurries on a mountain vacation. She’s never made a snowman.

It’s hard to remember exactly what my thoughts were as I rounded the bend where a patch of woods borders a field:

I glimpse the body of the deer by the roadside. Bright pink innards exposed, the only shock of color in the entire brown-gray landscape… when suddenly there are wings extended wide, curled at the ages…

Buzzard, says my brain. I see them all the time. But in that instant, a flash of white.

An eagle. An eagle. An eagle. Rising on its mighty wings, barely three feet away.

Oh oh oh.

I don’t know how I know, I just do: it’s not really flying away.

I’ve already passed, so I stop the car to look in the rearview mirror.

It’s still there. Plain as day, back at the carcass.

Only one thing to do…

I drive a short distance for the first safe place to turn around. Happens to be a tiny church tucked into the woods. I pull onto its driveway – broken concrete, in need of repair – and call my husband while circling round:

You won’t belive what I just saw – an eagle by the road! Eating a deer!

Wow…you better keep your eyes on the road. Be careful.

That’s just it, though. I WAS keeping my eyes on the road.

I am still keeping my eyes on the road, going back…

It’s still there.

I know I can’t get too close or it will fly again.

No other cars are coming down the road in either direction, so I get a short video:

Apologies for the erratic movement…

The video doesn’t capture the magnificence of the bird, and I wish I could have recorded it taking flight, the incredible majesty and grace of it, like some kind of winged dancer… I had to move on before someone came around the bend and found me stopped in their path.

I took the next road on the left…

The name of it, on a green street sign: Glory Road.

One more time I passed the field, slowly. One more time I saw the eagle, just as a school bus came along behind me…I had to keep going, but could see, in a quick rearview mirror check, that the bus had slowed. Not because of me; there was plenty of distance between us. Not to make a drop-off, either.

I am sure that bus was full of children who, like me, paused to see the eagle for a moment, so close, so huge, rising on its glorious wings.

Right there in sight of Glory Road.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Writing Challenge

Note: Eagles primarily eat fish. In winter, when fish are harder to come by, eagles will eat roadkill. I almost entitled this post “Provision.”

Descent of doves

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

Every evening around suppertime, they come.

The doves.

They adore my birdbath. Sometimes three of them cram in together. I think of the ancient Roman Baths, a place to gather and socialize, to share the events of the day while washing the grime away.

One dove tends to linger longer than the others, immersed in the water, fluffed to the size of a chicken.

As if staking claim to her personal pool.

Other birds do not know what to think about it. Occasionally another will land, say, a female cardinal. She sits cautiously, eyeing the dove. After a furtive sip she flits away.

The dove stays put. Doesn’t move a feather. Rather regal.

What I find most compelling is the effect of seeing the doves, of knowing they will come.

They represent peace, of course. Even if I didn’t know this, I think they’d impart it to me. They don’t fuss. They are gentle. Peaceable. Beautiful, in their impeccably smooth, pale-sand plumage. Restful, there in the still waters.

Most often I see two together, surely a mated pair, and the carol plays in my head: On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree.

Infinite symbolism, really. Spiritual, biblical…a sign of covenant. Of blessing.

In these days leading up to another heart surgery for my husband, when life is hitting the pause button yet again, the daily descent of doves in the evening imparts a calm I cannot fully articulate. I watch for them and they come. I refill the water for them and they savor it.

They do not know they’re between hunting seasons. It resumes here in early November.

I can’t bear to think of it, my sweet and precious birds. I didn’t even know until today that one of your collective nouns is a piteousness. To me it’s an unspeakable pity to kill such lovely and harmless creatures. So much in this world is a shattering, scattering pity.

Like the doves, none of us can know what lies ahead of us, all around us, in wait for us.

That thought was behind the closing stanza of a poem I wrote yesterday:

Yet again I cope with life on pause
redirecting my energy, because
no one can know what tomorrow will bring
only certainty that birds still sing, still sing
Come evening, a settling of doves
upon my birdbath. Oh, my loves, my loves—

Life is passing by

How I need this daily descent of doves. Their stillness, their peace.

My weary spirit rests with them in these moments and is refreshed.

See you at the baths tonight, my dears.

If you look closely you can see the female cardinal in the background, wondering if she might gather at the water, too.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge

My last hummingbird

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

She’s still here.

As of yesterday evening, anyway, after I went out in the rain to refill the almost-empty hummingbird feeder.

One little female, silvery-cream, with the faintest dark speckling on her breast.

Upon my return to the house, I stand a few feet back from the window in the unlit kitchen, and —zip! —she appears like a fairy out of nowhere. She perches on the feeder (attached to my window with a suction cup hanger), gripping the thin red rim with unspeakably tiny feet. Her back appears gray in the dusk but I know how it shimmers in the sunlight: gold-dusted, olive-green, smooth as glass. Ethereal. I marvel at the exotic lining around her eye. For a moment, I forget to breathe.

For several days prior, she and another hummingbird were fighting like mad for possession of the feeder. Clearly a high-stakes frenzy. Remarkably loud squeaking. Palpable urgency. Throughout the summer, four or more of them kept vying for a turn. They do not share. They drive each other away. Each bird has her own unique markings, but the astonishing speed of movement sometimes makes individual identification impossible. Except for the one female with a rare dot of red at her throat. Fancy.

Ornithologists say that male ruby-throats return first each spring, but my first hummingbird sighting this year, at the outset of April, was a female. I pushed up the kitchen blinds one chilly morning and there she was, right before my eyes, hovering for a split second before darting away. I caught the implied question: Ummm…where’s my nectar?!

I like to think it was this same female. The first to arrive. The last to leave.

I wonder why she lingers.

It’s mid-September. The males left at the end of August. Punctually. I saw the last one on the last day of the month: A male perched on the feeder, his black ascot turning to crimson-fire whenever he lifted his head. I watched him take his fill of sugar-water. I noted the date. By Labor Day, I knew that was it. He’d gone, as if in keeping with the calendar page flipping or an inner alarm clock going off: Ding! Male hummingbirds vanish all at once. Now you see them, now you don’t. Poof.

Females remain for a few more weeks. I’ve sensed that mine have been leaving, one by one, in the last few days. Off to Mexico or Central America or wherever they winter. I am curious about where my birds go. I am certain each goes to its own exact spot; there’s no shadow of turning with hummingbirds.

I’ve read of their long, lonely, exhausting migration, but I can’t imagine hummingbirds ever feeling sorry for themselves. Prosaic writers have described them as “made of air” and “tricks of light” — I love the lyricality.  I also know that the hummingbird’s fragile appearance belies a tenacity and ferocity unrivaled by any other bird around, even the huge red-shouldered hawk that sits so majestically on our power lines and poles, scrutinizing the landscape for prey.

Last week I heard the cries of a hawk. I went out on my porch to listen and was rewarded with the sight of two red-shouldered hawks flying, one after the other, in the patch of tall pine woods across my street. I suspect there’s a nest nearby. While I stood gazing in awe, there came a sudden vibration: vvvvRRRR! A female hummingbird materialized to hover three feet away from my face, her wings beating like tiny fan blades on high.

I said, Oh it’s you.

I feel sure she was saying the same thing.

We seem to be equally curious about each other.

Maybe she was the one that still lingers, my last hummingbird.

She won’t stay much longer.

In the predawn hours, with a rainstorm raging and my electricity out, it’s too dark to see anything beyond my window except for the feeder. It still holds. Freshly replenished. I will ensure that it remains so for as long as my hummingbird should have need of it.

When she’s gone, I’ll experience a little autumnal pang of loss, the expected but unwanted shedding, the indefinable ache of transition, the instinctive pulling-inward preparation against the coming cold and dark. For a time. A season.

Until the morning I push up my blinds and we meet face-to-face once more.

 Godspeed, precious spark.

*******

With thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Tuesday Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to the hummingbird that remains
even now, in the wind and rain
while I write