Bird Stories

Chanticleer

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

He comes a-strolling with dignity and purpose, bobbing majestically, robed in royal red, as fiery as embers in the grate on a winter’s night. He’s huge, he’s beautiful, and he knows it, the neighborhood rooster leading his ladies on a foraging expedition though all the front yards.

Sometimes he brings three ladies. Today, it’s four.

He doesn’t partake of the ground-feast himself. He leads the way, strutting to and fro, keeping watch while the hens scratch and peck.

Naturalist Sy Montgomery writes in Birdology:

Most roosters are very solicitous of their hens. When he’s not patrolling for predators, he’s often searching for food his flock might enjoy. When he finds it, uttering his food call…he stands aside while his women enjoy the treat, and only after they’ve had their fill will he sample the snack. The Talmud praises the rooster, and its writers advise the Jews to learn from him courtesy toward their mates.

I watch from the kitchen window as the chickens work their way over to my yard. The rooster crows. Montgomery calls it “the soundtrack of rural life.” In my mind, it’s the quintessence of rustic. And something more. The rooster’s crow calls to something deep in the human spirit (long before and long after the Apostle Peter wept in contrition).

Montgomery, again:

In the sacred book, the Hadith, the prophet Muhammad tells us why roosters crow: they do so because they have seen an angel. The moment a cock crows, the holy man advises, is a good time to ask for God’s blessing.

I remember the story-name given to roosters in fables: Chanticleer. From Old French, meaning “clear song.”

I slip outside through the garage to see if I can record it.

The chickens are under the crape myrtle at the old dog’s grave, scritching about in the mulch, flinging it every which way. The rooster is immediately aware of my presence. He turns to face homeward, in case.

Here’s my recording…wait for it…

At the end of a required re-interview for a job I’ve had for years (another story in itself, involving all staff) I was asked if I had anything else to add. I said yes. “I’ve learned a lot by watching birds. There’s nothing random in their actions.”

I likely left the interviewers scratching their heads, but I held my position.

Chanticleer crows. God, please bless me, my family, the work of my hands, my heart. Give me strength.

In the words of Montgomery: At the end of my prayers…birds teach me how to listen.

*******

Composed for Day 24 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Eagles

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

I grew up in the city, a child of sidewalks, stoplights, bridges, and clattering trains. I could walk to church, to the 7-Eleven for Slurpees or candy, to Woolco buy the latest hit song on a 45 RPM record, and to all three public schools I attended from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

The memories of nature from my neighborhood, other than the maple tree which dropped its leaves in the front yard every fall, are the gray roly-polies I played with on the concrete steps at the back door, the slugs I salted to watch them dissolve (sorry, slugs), ants, and eastern tent caterpillars with their beautiful rainbow patterning. I caught them put and them into recycled butter tubs with lids, to be disappointed when they turned into such plain moths. Oh, and the random mouse that got in the house to startle my mother, who screamed. And the ditch rat that got into my bedroom… another story for another day, that.

I know there were birds. There had to be birds.

I can’t remember them.

I longed to live in the country, with my grandparents. Even though the mosquitoes, yellow flies, and ticks might eat me alive, I could find tiny gray toads the size of my thumbnail. I would marvel at the dazzling colors of dragonflies, once I got over my terror of them. Hummingbirds zoomed past me for my grandmother’s flowers, never minding my presence, their emerald and ruby feathers gleaming like jewel-fire. Cicadas rattled the earth and my heart with their rhythms. There were deer, rabbits, snakes (alas!), and birds, always birds, chattering and singing incessantly in the dense woods…

The longing never left me, so when my husband and I settled in the countryside, I knew I was home. I rejoiced that our boys would grow up treasuring a closeness to nature…

So I thought.

The oldest always wanted to live in the city (is this always the way? Wishing for the exact opposite of what we have?).

He grew up. He went to the city.

He was miserable.

He came back…got married, became a father…

He texted me a photo recently, with tremendous excitement: Look what I just saw!

A barren field along a deserted country road…

Where stood two bald eagles.

His eyes sparkled when he saw me later: They were huge! So beautiful…

It is better than I ever dreamed, this life, here in the country.

Isn’t it, Son.

*******

Composed for Day 22 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

To build or not to build

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

Those of you who’ve followed my blog for a while will know that I chronicle the return of house finches to my front door wreath every March. These little songbirds typically build a nest before I know it; they’re incredibly surreptitious. This has been happening for several years. A little pair actually slept in the wreath at night all winter before last, as if staking their homestead claim.

Last April, a tragedy struck and the finches have been scarce ever since. One day, five tiny, beautiful fledglings were thriving in the nest; a week later, all five died without warning. I found them with their yellow beaks opened wide to the sky, quivering; took me a minute to realize they were dead and full of maggots. This was the second seasonal brood for these parents. They’d built the nest and laid the first set of eggs before the end of February (“seems awfully early,” I wrote in my notes). Two of those fledglings died. The very day I removed the nest with the two dead fledglings in it, the parents rebuilt. They worked feverishly, laid five new blue eggs, hatched them, and lost every baby within a couple of weeks.

Seven dead babies in a season…too much for me, maybe for the parents. They vanished. There was no rescuing the wreath; it had to go, nest, dead babies, and all.

For the remainder of the summer my front porch was silent. No melodious trills of finch song. My granddaughters and I watched the bluebirds out back raise two broods (bluebirds are amazingly tenacious, territorial, and extremely loyal to their breeding grounds; they watch us as much as we watch them, almost as if to say Hello, what are you people doing in our yard?).

But the finches are shy. Nervous, even. They nest near people as a defense against predators, but they don’t want to be near people.

Ever since I took down my Christmas wreath and hung an old grapevine wreath with silk magnolias, I’ve been watching and wondering: Will the finches return this year? If they do, will the eggs hatch and will the babies be okay? If not…I don’t think I can handle the grief. I always protect the porch and door for them and yet this thing happened. As much as I love these birds, as precious as they are, I’d rather they nested elsewhere than endure it again.

I realize this is my own defense mechanism. An attempt to protect my heart.

Then, at the very end of January, I thought I heard a familiar Cheep! at my door.

Through the beveled window, I saw a shadow moving in the wreath…

Could it be?

It was.

A male house finch.

He was there and gone.

I know he was scouting the nest site.

I’ve seen him a time or two since. He comes punctually between 4:44 and 4:54 in the evening.

Three weeks later, on February 20th, he brought his mate:

The female is in silhouette; the male’s head is facing the camera—his chest is extraordinarily red (looks like there’s three of him, but that’s just the beveled glass).

I suspect they’re having ongoing discussion about nesting in this wreath:

What do you think, honey? Prime location…

Hmmm. I don’t know. I definitely don’t like this glass. Too cool to the touch with way too much movement on the other side. I must have absolute privacy for incubating my eggs.

Right, right, right. Well, you know we don’t usually build here in the curve anyway. We build on top! Lots of privacy up there!

Weellll… it just feels a little too narrow. A little more space, a little more cover, that’d be nice...

This past Tuesday, March 5th, I saw a little bird tail busily moving at the upper right side of the wreath… same spot where last year’s ill-fated nest was built.

Yet no nesting material has been laid.

And so I wonder. Will they actually build here? They clearly want to. If so…when will it start in earnest? Will they decide this wreath just won’t do, after all? Is it not quite time yet? There’s nothing random about birds, their actions, or their inner clocks; their precision is astonishing.

Dare I, dare I even hope, that they are still in the planning phase? Maybe with a week or so to go, and that there will be eggs, possibly hatching at Easter?

Time will tell. I daren’t make predictions…I’ll just keep watching and waiting…

I should just take the wreath down and let them go. It would be easier.

Oh, but love isn’t easy, is it, little finches.

*******
Composed for Day 7 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Love returns

/ Fran Haley / 3 Comments

In the fading light
on the last day of January, I hear it:

a loud, merry squawk! on the front porch.

First time I’ve heard that precious sound
since last April, when the silence set in
without warning, when the whole nestful
of beautiful finch fledglings in my door wreath
died.

Season after season, tiny life
came into being
on my portal,
taking wing from sky-blue eggs
to blue-egg sky, until the April day
when it stopped.

The hardest part of loss
apart from the emptiness
is the unanswered why.

For now we see through a glass darkly,
wrote the Apostle in his chapter on love.
Those words echo in my memory
as I look through the etched-glass window
of my door, where the silhouette
of the visitor perches on
the replacement wreath.

I don’t know, but I suspect
he’s the father, returning to
scout for a safe nesting-place
as in seasons past.

I don’t know if I am hoping
he’ll choose this wreath
as bird courtship
goes into full swing.

I don’t know, here on the cusp
of Valentine’s Day, if my heart
is willing to risk
giving itself away
after such
a shattering

but at the sound of that squawk!
it instantaneously leaps

and I can’t help remembering
how Grandma used to phone me,
saying
I just wanted to hear
your precious voice.

You cannot know, little Finch
on the other side of the glass,
how precious your voice is to me
or how I marvel
at your resiliency.

In the long continuum of things,
our stories are interwoven
as much as the grasses and tiny flowers
and random sweet feathers in all
your former nests.

If you dare to build again
here in my sanctuary
I will dare to love again.

If you do not, I will understand
that your new life will go on elsewhere
as I go on cherishing
every bright memory
and the sound.

The return

Renewal: Spiritual Journey

/ Fran Haley / 18 Comments

This week I’m honored to host fellow Spiritual Journey writers who gather on the first Thursday of each month.

In choosing the theme of renewal, I note that one definition of the word is resuming an activity after an interruption. That’s exactly what I’m doing now: writing my first blog post in two months. My blogging life went on hiatus while a lot of other life happened. I spent the summer keeping granddaughters. I returned to work at school in a new role. And my husband, a pastor, slowly succumbed to debilitating back pain. Unable to stand for very long, he’s been preaching while seated in a chair. Surgery was inevitable. Having spent four days in the hospital at the end of October, he’s now home and slowly ‘resuming interrupted activities’ like sitting, standing, and walking, which are, at times, excruciating.

Considering my husband’s journey, I might have chosen the word endurance. He lost an eye to a rare condition in 2015. In 2019, he survived two heart attacks, cardiac arrest, and two subsequent surgeries. He was still convalescing when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Through it all, something he came to enjoy, and which helped him regain his physical strength, was hiking at a nearby dam. I’d return home from work and he’d tell me: “I saw an eagle at the dam today!”

I started accompanying him on weekends, armed with binoculars and my bird identification apps. We saw (and heard) a wondrous variety of birds, most notably the ospreys with babies in their nest, the great blue heron at the waterfall, and the gorgeous red-shouldered hawk that flew ahead of us in the woods to perch on a low branch, where it stared right back at us, with considerably less awe.

No eagles.

As time wore on, my husband’s back wore out, and there were no more hikes.

When the pain relegated him to preaching from a chair, he finally scheduled the surgery. It was more than he wanted to endure. He was tired of enduring.

Which brings me to the need for renewal.

Circle back with me, for a moment, to the eagles.

A few years ago I had a medical issue which required an outpatient procedure. My husband drove me to the hospital and back home afterward. It was winter; I watched the bare trees and old farm outbuildings whipping by my window when I saw… could it be? A bald eagle sitting, big as life, at the roadside! If I’d been on a bike I could have held out my hand and touched it (theoretically).

I was, however, still woozy from anesthesia…perhaps it was a figment…

But my husband cried out: “That was an eagle!“

He turned the car around.

The eagle might have ignored our passing again, but it grew suspicious when we slowed down. It unfurled its mighty wings and headed for a gnarled old oak.

Call it fanciful, if you like…sighting that eagle reassured me that all would be well with my medical situation.

So it was.

Four months later my husband’s heart stopped; he was resuscitated, with a shattered sternum; he survived emergency stents and bypasses.

He went walking at the dam as rehab. He saw eagles.

Although I’ve looked and looked, I haven’t seen one since that unique roadside appearance.

Until this last surgery.

Our oldest son offered to stay the first night with his dad in the hospital so I could come home and sleep. I was exhausted. I would stay the next night.

Early on the following morning, somewhat rested, I drove back to the hospital. October in the North Carolina Piedmont is breathtakingly beautiful. Along both sides of this particular highway the forest stretches out in a visual paean of orange, red, and yellow. That day, the blazing colors were framed by a brilliant blue, cloudless sky. Our son had texted that his dad had a rough night. We all knew to expect it it; the intensity of post-op pain for spinal surgery is severe. My husband has already been in tremendous pain for so long. He’s already suffered and endured so much…he knew he needed this surgery, but will he have the strength to endure the aftermath?

Will I?

Such were my dark thoughts that bright morning, inching my way back to him in the congested workday traffic, when a solitary bird glided into view in the tranquil blue above the gridlocked cars. A big, dark bird with long, broad wings, white head shining bright in the sun…

It can’t be, I thought. After all the times I’ve tried to see one…that it should be now…I leaned as far as I could toward the windshield, taking advantage of the stopped traffic to stare upward.

It came nearer, sailing with easy grace, low enough for me to see its gleaming white, fan-shaped tail.

No mistaking it.

Isaiah 40:31 came immediately to mind:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Renewal. An infusion of new strength, sufficient for the day. An assurance of more for the difficult days ahead. These words were originally given by the prophet Isaiah to the Israelites, foretelling the end of their Babylonian captivity. The people would make the seven-hundred-mile journey back home; they would be restored. The chapter begins with Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. The phrase they shall walk seems especially significant in light of my husband’s situation, that he shall soon walk without the pain that’s plagued him. There’s more to say about the biblical symbolism of eagles, but in this verse, the original language seems to allude to feathers rather than wings and an ancient Jewish belief that when the eagle molts, his youth and vitality are restored.

My husband’s battered body will not be restored to youth in this life. Vitality, however, means strength and energy, which brings us to another definition of renewal: a return to vigor. A return of physical strength and good health. That is our prayer for his healing.

Most importantly, the verse speaks to strength renewed by waiting on, or depending on, or clinging to, the Lord. More than renewal of physical strength. It’s spiritual rehab.

That eagle, appearing on the morning after my husband’s surgery, buoyed my spirit. As did the other I saw by the road on the day I was concerned for my own health.

We continue to wait on, to cling to, the Lord as we travel this long road of recovery. Daily renewal of strength comes from nowhere else.

Let me close by saying I’m awed, anew, by His use of visual aids for the spiritual journey.

Harbingers

I. That Morning You Drove Me Home From the Medical Procedure

back country byway, winter-brown grass
trees, old gray outbuildings, zipping, zipping past
small pond clearing, wood-strewn ground
bald eagle sitting roadside—too profound—

I thought it was the anesthesia
until you saw it, too,
before it flew.

And I knew.

II. On the Morning I Returned to the Hospital After Your Surgery

lanes of heavy traffic, day dawning bright
our son says you had a painful, painful night
dew on the windshield, fog in my brain
all hope of moving past this gridlock, in vain
but for the glory of autumn leaves, a-fire
against cloudless blue where a solitary flier
glides by, white head and tail gleaming in the sun…

I promise, beloved one.

Your healing
has begun.

Bald Eagle by Gary Rothstein, NASA. Public domain.

Dear Spiritual Journey Writers: Thank you for traveling alongside me!
Click here to add your post links.

Home poem

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

For today’s Open Write on Ethical ELA, participants are invited to write poems about “places we call home”.

Nothing pulls on the heart like home… I can almost hear the Beatles’ song “In My Life” playing in the background: “There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed…” The memory of these places, and the spirit of them, really are the theme song of our lives.

Of all the places I remember and could write about…have written about…I choose my home now. I have lived here the longest. I became a grandmother here. I have learned a lot more about savoring here. Usually I try to make my poem title do more work, but today, no other will do. 

Home

In the first moments
of pale-pink light
the big brown rabbit
comes from the woods
to nibble away
at the clover

in the ever-thickening branches
of the crape myrtle
my husband and planted
years ago
I can spot hummingbirds
hiding among the leaves
always alone
never together 

they dart, one by one
to the kitchen-window feeder

silvery-green females
perfect, pure
ethereal as fairies

a male, ruby fire at his throat
(brighter than the cardinal-flame
landing over on the fence)
impossible greens and turquoise 
shimmering on his back

unaware of his utter tininess
he sometimes perches
atop the feeder
as if to say I am King
of this Water-Mountain

a pair of doves feeds
on the ground by the tree line
then takes flight on pearly wings
vanishing in the pines and sweetgums
where their nest is secreted

robins, robins everywhere
just last week
a speckled fledgling on the back deck
both parents in the grass
chirping ground-control instructions

the mockingbird in the driveway
strutting and stretching his banded wings
as if he knows how legendary he is

a trill of finch-song from a nearby tree
so plaintive I fear my heart may burst

and the bluebirds
oh the bluebirds

if only I spoke green language
I would explain that I removed their house
from the back deck 
because it is about to be torn down

that I waited
until their unexpected second brood
flew out into the world

never imagining these parents
would return to the empty rail corner
a day or two later
clearly so puzzled
to find their house gone…

if I were the hermit wizard-woman
of this semi-enchanted nook
(as I sometimes pretend to be)
I would have known what to do

but my unmagical self did my best:
placing the birdhouse atop
the old wooden arbor
built by my oldest
when he was a boy

well away
from the impending deck destruction

and to my astonishment
the bluebirds have followed
their home

I do not yet know
if more eggs have been laid
in the house relocated
to the arbor

but as evening draws
and the pine-shadows fall
across the arbor
and the crape myrtle
and the big brown rabbit
back in the clover
and the old dog’s grave
and the old deck
about to be made new

I ponder
my length of time on this Earth
and the continuous carving-out
of home
how it goes on and on

a path forever unfolding before me
that I must follow

like the doe in the little clearing
across the road
pausing for one long moment
with her two fawns
before disappearing
in the leafy green

One fawn has already been ushered across

*******

with thanks to Ethical ELA and Two Writing Teachers
for the inviolable, invaluable writing spaces
and the inspiration

Bluebirdology

/ Fran Haley / 5 Comments

This spring, a pair of Eastern bluebirds raised a brood in a birdhouse on the back deck. From the windows I watched the whole process. I learned much from my avian teachers.

Bluebirds are curious; they want to know everything, including what humans are doing. When the finch nestlings died a couple months back, necessitating that I dispose of the nest, Mama and Papa Bluebird sat side-by-side on the fence, solemnly watching my every move. Bluebirds are all about family. Their fledglings stick around. When this first brood left the next, the parents became fiercely territorial. They attacked the kitchen bay window and cars in the driveway. No matter how far down the driveway my husband parks, they still take over his car; I even saw the father bluebird killing a worm on top of it one morning, like a mighty hunter on some holy mountain. I wondered if that worm was a meal for his children; the parents continue to feed them for a while after departing the nest.

Lesson One of Bluebirdology: protect your young at all costs.

Mama Bluebird takes over the hummingbird feeder, frequently looking in the kitchen window: What are those humans up to?

Papa Bluebird in all his blue glory, patrolling the fence.

The baby bluebirds are juveniles now, and over the last few weeks I’ve seen three or four them at any given time in the grass or lined up on the fence.

Lesson Two of Bluebirdology: Persevere.

One of the juveniles getting its own breakfast worm: Ta-daa!

What I find most remarkable is how the juveniles help to prepare for the next brood. I watched Papa Bluebird carry new nesting material into the birdhouse; in a moment, here came one of his children with a bit of straw.

Lesson Three of Bluebirdology: Teach your children well; survival is a community effort.

This weekend my seven-year-old granddaughter and I watched Mama Bird sitting on the fence watching us through the window, when out of the blue came Papa Bluebird. He landed beside his mate and fed her an insect in his beak. “They look like they’re kissing!” exclaimed my granddaughter.

They did. It was a sign, for sure…

I suspected, with the recent activity around the birdhouse, that new eggs were on the way. Here’s the thing: That birdhouse has only one little opening where the birds enter and exit. No way to peek in and verify anything or even to clean out a used nest.This is where the plot really thickens: My husband and I are about to embark on much-needed deck repairs. I needed to know: What’s in that birdhouse? If it is an active nest, by law we cannot disturb it. And if there are eggs… well, to me that makes it a sacred place. Not to be desecrated.

And so I bought a little endoscope and ran the wire camera into the birdhouse.

There are four bright blue eggs in a bed of pine straw.

I am not sure when they were laid. It could be a week or two from now before they hatch. Then it will be about three weeks before this next brood fledges and begins to fend for itself (I am imagining a whole army of bluebirds on the offense at that point, with Brood One still in the wings).

The deck repair will have to wait a bit, alas… not sure how I am going to explain this to my husband or our builder but I will take my chances with them over the bluebirds. In honor of life.

Heeding Lesson Four of Bluebirdology: There’s no place like home.

One of the juveniles still hanging around its natal home.

*******

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

Happy Birdday

/ Fran Haley / 7 Comments

Was there a childhood birthday when you woke up excited beyond description for what you hoped that day would bring? It was like that when I turned six. I couldn’t wait for my father to take me to the store where I’d pick out my first pet: a parakeet. I’d begged and begged for one. I was enchanted by birds then, and I am exponentially enchanted now, which is why I woke up so excited last Saturday.

It was to be a day filled with birds…more than I could even count, although I had to try.

Global Big Day, you see.

World Migratory Bird Day, to be more precise, a global celebration occurring on the second Saturdays of May and October. As defined on the WMBD website: World Migratory Bird Day is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. It has a global outreach and is an effective tool to help raise global awareness of the threats faced by migratory birds, their ecological importance, and the need for international cooperation to conserve them.

In the common interest of science, conservation, and celebration, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology invites bird lovers around the world to count all birds seen or heard on Global Big Day and to enter this data in official checklists.

And so I joined Team eBird with my friend and fellow blogger-poet, Kim Johnson. She’s in Georgia, I’m in North Carolina, but we are birds of the same feather in countless ways, equally excited for this bird-counting day.

It began when I woke up to birdsong early Saturday morning. Lately it’s been a mockingbird, which, I’ve learned, is usually a male singing while the female incubates eggs.

This day, however, the dawn singer was a robin.

I threw on my robe and went outside to start my count as the earth swelled with bird chorus.

Here’s what Merlin Sound ID (a Cornell Lab app on my phone) told me I was hearing out front and on my back deck:

There are also some regular bird friends whose voices aren’t in this mix. Back in the house, a fluttering at the window…

My male ruby-throated hummingbird visits periodically throughout the day, and this day was no different; he arrived early and was off in a flash. I added him to my list.

Then there are my eastern bluebirds.

They’re a mated pair which nested in a birdhouse on the deck before Easter, attempting to be as furtive as possible, until the first week of May when they went stark raving territorial. The female flew and flew at the kitchen bay window. Both of them became obsessed with cars in the driveway; one morning I watched the male killing a worm on top of my son’s car. I am still not sure what prompted the sudden change in behavior, but I suspect their babies fledged and flew, resulting in fierce protectiveness of the habitat. All I can say with certainty is that these two birds believe they reign over the kingdom of my yard.

Because they do.

His Majesty

Her Royal Highness, taking over the hummingbird feeder

Never fear, Bluebirds Dear; I added you both to the list. And you don’t know it yet but I bought a “snake” camera to check your nest in the birdhouse, to see what exactly is in there. More on that later…

Other birds awaited on this Global Big Day. Off to the lake I went, in hopes of seeing eagles.

I didn’t see any. But I did see two great blue herons, separately, standing still as statues, as elegiac as poetry, in all their strange and ancient beauty.

They remind me that birds are the last living dinosaurs.

One of the two great blue herons

Over at the dam, a giant nest is protected by government fencing and two fake owls, which don’t seem to bother the two nesting ospreys at all.

One of the two ospreys

After duly noting the ospreys, I made a note to self: Get a good digital camera ASAP. The zoom on the phone can only do so much.

The trip to the lake yielded over thirty species of birds. In addition to those I noted at home, Merlin Sound ID picked up scarlet and summer tanagers, pine warblers, a Swainson’s thrush, Eastern phoebes, brown-headed cowbirds, white-breasted nuthatches, Eastern wood pee-wees, red-bellied woodpeckers and downy woodpeckers, Eastern towhees, chimney swifts, ovenbirds, and the American goldfinch.

Then a huge bird fell straight down from the sky and landed in the brush few feet in front of me.

A red-shouldered hawk. With its beak it grabbed a little snake I’d have never seen otherwise. And then the hawk ran—yes, ran!—into the woods.

I added the hawk to my list as I headed back to the car, exhausted but elated with my bird inventory. I was pretty much done.

But the hawk wasn’t done with me yet.

A little farther down the wooded path, a sudden loud “screaming” of birds— an unmistakable warning of danger, as the hawk sailed by to land on a low pine branch.

I stood as still as I could, videoing that bird for over two minutes while he cocked his head, observing me (does he have a checklist, too?). Smaller birds clamored all around the whole time; some were quite near the hawk, almost like groupies. I couldn’t take my eyes off the hawk long enough to see exactly what the other birds were; Merlin later told me “robins.” Really? I have read that robins are the birds whose warnings make all others take cover but I have never heard them so loud, in such stereo sound. I’d already counted robins, fortunately…then just like that, the hawk took off and the wild screams followed right after him…Elvis has left the building.

Wild.

The red-shouldered hawk, celebrity of the day

Back at home in the evening my family gathered ’round to celebrate my birthday… even more bird-wonder in this day!

Books on birds and birding

Books to share with my granddaughters, ages seven and eighteen months

Finch earrings from my son

I settled down to bed that evening, counting my years, counting my birds, counting the many blessings and love in my life….all in all, the happiest of birddays.

I opened one of the new books, The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human, to read the opening sentence:

Imagine what might happen if birds studied us.

Imagine? There’s no need to imagine...

I know without question that they do.

His Majesty, looking in the window

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life story writing challenge
to Kim Johnson, for always inspiring me
to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for its amazing mission
to all who help protect birds

and to birds, for all the awe
and the lessons we need to learn
about tending our Earth

For my finch followers: hatching

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

When death
is all around
be still, listen
to the sound
of birds

to hopes lost
and found

here in the song
life and grace
abound


Backstory: House finches return year after year to build nests on my front door wreath. Every spring and summer, my porch becomes a bird sanctuary and nursery; I, a present but uninvolved custodian, watch it all unfolding from the periphery. This winter the little finch pair actually roosted in the wreath at night. That is a first. I imagined them nestled together in the grapevine, keeping each other warm, dreaming dreams of life to come. They started awfully early this season, building their nest in the wreath and laying at least four eggs before the last week of February. It was still cold. March arrived with gusting winds and sustained freezing temperatures; I worried about the tiny life on my door. During winter’s only snow this year, well before before spring officially arrived, the baby finches hatched. Because of the cold, I stayed away; I didn’t want to startle Mama Finch, who needed to be on the nest keeping her babies warm. I saw the hatchlings when they were a day or two old and didn’t check again for about three weeks…expecting they had fledged and possibly gone, as the happy singing and trilling bird-talk at my door had ceased. When I came around to check the nest, I found one fledgling dead, its little head drooped over the front of the nest, and another beautiful fledgling, so tiny, with such perfect little wings, enmeshed with the nest at the back—almost becoming part of the nest. This is another first: in all these generations of finches I’ve not known any babies to die. In fact, they usually stay in the nest after they can fly, seemingly unwilling to leave. I marvel at how they can still stuff themselves into it. Home sweet home…until now. Not wanting to leave the dead baby finches and fearing there were parasites or some disease in the nest, I removed the babies, placed them deep in a bed of leaves by the woods out back, and destroyed the old nest.

It broke my heart.

The parents must have been watching me…I read that birds mourn for their little lost ones.

They began rebuilding immediately. With urgency, Soon there was a perfect green nest artistically adorned with a long gray feather from some other bird, lined with layers of the softest, whitest fluff —wherever do they find this? And a week before Easter there were five—five!—new eggs.

They began hatching yesterday. I’ve been keeping close watch…and this is the first time I’ve caught a glimpse (just the very quickest glimpse) of a finch actually hatching.

The poem at the opening was inspired by one shared for VerseLove on Ethical ELA yesterday, coinciding with the hatching of these finch eggs: Why Do You Write Poems When Death is All Around Us?

The answer, for me, is a matter of awe: Life is all around, somehow overcoming, even singing at the door.

*******

with thanks to Andy Schoenborn for sharing Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre’s poem yesterday
and Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life story sharing-place

and to the finches
for infusing my days
with so much awe
hope
and notes
of joy


For my finch followers: returning thanks

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

Dear Delivery People:

Thank you
for respecting
my taped-up signs
that say stay away 
from the front porch
it’s a bird sanctuary again
the house finches nested early
on the door wreath I left for them
Mama laid four tiny eggs in blue cold
mohawked nestlings hatched in a snowfall
by mid-March I thought the fledglings
had all flown, for there was no more
happy chatter-song at the door 
and when I checked I found
two perfectly beautiful
fledglings dead
in the nest

how 
why
what
happened
here

I placed them together 
in a deep pile of dry leaves 
at wood’s edge because birds
do not bury their dead
they are creatures
of the air

I tore down
the death-nest
and my taped-up signs

and read online
that birds grieve
the death of
their young

the next day
blades of green grass
appeared on the wreath
where the nest had been

the day after that, more
grass and flowered strands

scientists say that only
the mother finch builds
the nest but I am here
to tell you that the father
worked just as hard

in tandem they flew
with string and fluff
in their beaks
chattering their
architectural plans

in five days,
recreating 
what was lost

and now
in the most
exquisitely-lined nest
I’ve ever seen

there are new blue eggs

exactly
two

so thank you,
Delivery People
for reading my
freshly-taped signs

this
is a sacred
little space
where miracles
of nature
take place

*******
with thanks to b.c. randall for today’s VerseLove invitation on Ethical ELA:

“Write today’s  poem for someone else: the boy who bags your groceries, the neighbor who walks by your front window every day, that colleague or friend who has been on your mind. Craft the poem  to be left for another to unwrap (a gift that we all need).”