house finches

Dear Little Blue Egg

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

I still do not know where your parents are at present.

I am just your surrogate human grandmother figure who lives behind the blue door where you lie resting in your beautiful downy nest in the magnolia wreath.

Quite alone since your Sunday debut.

Three days now.

You ought to have had at least couple of sibling eggs, but…

Here is what I have learned, since learning is the only thing I can do in this situation of waiting to see how Nature acts on your behalf:

  1. Sometimes a mother bird’s egg-laying gets interrupted. Your mother may resume. I haven’t known this to happen before with our house finch families, but let’s not dwell on that right now.
  2. Sometimes a mother finch lays just one egg. Again, I haven’t known this to happen before, but… maybe you’re all she has. Which means you are very precious, indeed.
  3. Sometimes a mother finch will lay eggs and wait for some time before returning to incubate them, as a means of diverting attention from the nest. It’s a ploy to keep you safe. I could have sworn I heard your parents chatting at the nest late yesterday afternoon. I so expected another egg…
  4. Because a mother may wait a rather long time to return, overly interested humans (ahem) should wait a month (a MONTH!) before assuming a nest and egg are abandoned. There is hope for you yet, Little Blue Egg…

Meanwhile, I’ve done all I can for my front porch bird sanctuary… or should I say egg sanctuary? As always, I put up a sign warning visitors of your nest with instructions to use another door. My family knows to leave the front door bolted (just in case, I put a reminder sign inside: STOP! -birds-).

Meanwhile, with temperatures dipping into the twenties overnight, I cannot help thinking about your cold blue lonesomeness. I am making myself take heart that there can be a pretty good span of time before incubation begins…that you still have a window for survival…

Meanwhile, there are PLENTY of other things with which to concern myself. In the whole of the universe, you are but one little blue egg; yet your tiny solitary presence affects me. Maybe it has something to do with all the work your parents put into creating this beautiful nest and the expense of egg production is to your mother. Very costly, that. Should you, her current one and only, not hatch…it seems, in the scheme of things, a grievous loss.

Granted, grievous losses happen in the world every single day, and my species is not the best (by far) at fathoming (or preventing) them.

For the record: I love birds. Something about you gives wings to something in my soul. House finch songs are particularly joyful; indeed, you’re a bona fide omen of joy (I looked it up long ago). Early in the morning, doxology of joy; in the blue hour, evensong of joy.

This present silence, dear Little Blue Egg, feels immense.

Know that I am pulling for you while watching from a distance.

Your hopeful resident human-guardian-grandmother,
Franna

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March

Only one

/ Fran Haley / 21 Comments

Every March, house finches build a nest on top of my front door wreath.

The mother usually lays three or four pale blue eggs. The babies fledge and fly away all too soon.

In 2020, when COVID-19 struck the face of the Earth, the finches built their nest but laid no eggs. I don’t know why; it was one more thing to mourn.

Last year, the finches returned and laid five eggs—a record! Making up for the previous year? I wondered.

And so it is March again, and again there’s a finch nest on my front door. These seem to appear overnight, as magically as mushrooms in the lawn.

And on Sunday, there was an egg:

My soul rejoiced.

The birds are a marvel; their songs are a marvel. They lift my spirits immeasurably. Every nest is different; this one has lovely down and fiber running through it. So soft. Last year’s was very green. One nest in years past was trimmed in tiny flowers. Finch dads are mixed media artisans; they collect the materials. This papa seems especially considerate and nurturing.

So, as an annual bird Franna, I check on my grand-eggs daily until my tiny pink grand-finches appear. The eggs hatch one day at a time, for they are laid one day at a time, usually in the mornings between 7:00-9:00.

Here, Friends, is where the plot thickens…

As of today (I am writing this on Monday afternoon), there remains just the one little blue egg.

I am concerned.

I know, go ahead and tell me all the things about birds and Nature knowing how to manage perfectly well, but… it’s so cold and windy here… I think I’ve heard the finches, but I haven’t seen the mother on the nest incubating her egg yet. Or laying any more. Why? Will there even BE a baby bird, or…

I know, sometimes things happen. Sometimes we get to know the what and the why; sometimes we don’t.

Meanwhile… I keep thinking of you, Little Blue Egg, all cold and alone…which drives me to look things up; I have learned that an egg can be viable for maybe two weeks before a mother incubates it.

Blessed reassurance…

probably absurd
this obsession with a bird
—this one egg, really—
wish I could do more than wait
for Nature to rule its fate

—sigh—

—Stay tuned, y’all.

*******



with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March

Tiny trembling life

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

One of my favorite things about spring is the return of the house finches, which build a nest and raise a little family on my front door wreath.

I am treated to a bird’s eye view of tiny life coming into the world.

As some of you know from previous posts, the finches built the nest last year but never laid any eggs. It was haunting, coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 shutdown. Barrenness. Emptiness. Loss.

They are making up for it this year.

Mama Finch laid five eggs during Holy Week; usually there are only three or four.

They’ve all hatched now and more pictures will be forthcoming, but here are the first two babies.

For the record, the collective noun for finches is a charm or a trembling.

A trembling charm of tiny new life upon my house:

For Day Twenty of National Poetry Month, a haiku:

Nature has her charms
Gifts of fragile new songbirds
Trembling abundance

Bird sanctuary poem

/ Fran Haley / 19 Comments

A Golden Shovel poem in honor of the finches nesting on my front door, the miracle of new life, and faith. Reshared as a stand-alone from my April 1st Spiritual Journey post, in recognition of National Poetry Month. A Holy Week celebratory hymn based on the words of Christ: Behold, I am making all things new (Revelation 21:5, ESV).

I come to the sanctuary in the cool of the day to behold
these moments of Earth’s remembering, an altar call where I
respond, walking the greening aisle just as I am
to a fanfare of wingbeats and music-making.
Holy holy holy, I surrender all
in wordless doxology on the returning. Let all things
their Creator bless, with ancient morningsong, yet ever new.

shared for Poetry Friday, with thanks to Mary Lee for hosting the Roundup

On the finches not returning

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

Today I lift a line from Emily Dickinson.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
My finches, every spring—
On my wreath their nest awaits
New life they always bring—

This year —more than ever—
I watch for their return—
Yet the nest is empty
Of that for which I yearn—

I wonder what is keeping them
And if my charm is gone—
Do the finches know somehow
Life must keep moving on—

Come home, little finches—
Come home— if you will—
Hope is the thing with feathers
Where I’m abiding—still.

Note: “Charm” is the group name for finches.

Good vibrations

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

Two of our three baby finches hatched 

I was expecting to find a hatched baby finch on Sunday.

Instead, I found two!

—I think.

I can really only tell it’s two because one egg of three is still there. Although I can kind of discern two different necks, one baby lying over the other.

I knew the eggs were due to hatch around Sunday, and all last week I wondered what the mother bird was experiencing. To begin with, she built—rebuilt, actually—her nest on top of the wreath on my front door, which means that any time we walk down the hallway or open any other doors in the house, she feels those vibrations. Is that a good thing, somehow? Is that a reason why finches like to build so close to humans, to feel those larger rhythms of life, perhaps trusting them to be benevolent and protective forces?

And I wondered—being a mom—if she could feel stirrings inside the eggs beneath her as she diligently kept them warm on these still-frosty nights and mornings. Eggshells are only so thick . . . Can she feel those tiny hearts beating under her, long before her chicks begin pecking their way out into the world?

So many good vibrations . . . .

Reminds me of the story behind the famous song. When he was young, Brian Wilson’s mother told him that dogs will bark at people who give off “bad vibrations.”

Inspired, Brian eventually composed the Beach Boys iconic masterpiece Good Vibrations.

Which leads me back to the naming of these three babies (in a previous post: Tiny trio).  Finches are singers, and my son is a Beach Boys aficionado, so . . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Brian and Dennis (the latter of which was apparently revved up and decided to hatch early—how fitting).

Their brother Carl is due to arrive tomorrow.

—Stay tuned!

“I’m pickin’ up good vibrations . . . “

Tiny trio

/ Fran Haley / 24 Comments

Omne trium perfectum: “Everything that comes in threes is perfect”

Little bird up in a tree

Looked down and sang a song to me.

—”Little Bird,” Dennis Wilson, Stephen Kalinich, Brian Wilson

The house finch nesting in the wreath on our front door is incubating three lovely blue eggs.

My son (Cadillac Man) and I are walking, doing laps in the churchyard on a sunny afternoon, talking about names for baby birds (see what happens when new life generates in your realm; if you’re human, you take nonsensical ownership).

“It’s too obvious, but I almost can’t resist calling them Atticus, Jem, and Scout,” I chuckle. “I mean, they’re FINCHES.”

“Yeah, you’re right—it’s too obvious,” says Cadillac Man.

I think I hear a small sigh.

“Hmm. Well, there’s Harry, Hermione, and Ron . . . ” I offer.

Cadillac Man’s face remains immobile. I can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. He says nothing.

I can see that literary names are a no go, which is a shame, with “the rule of three” and all that. Cadillac Man does not think from a repository of words and phrases gleaned over time from books like I do. He thinks in music. He always has.

We walk a little way in silence; we’re keeping a pretty good pace. Then Cadillac Man proceeds to tell me new things he’s learning in his continuous (borderline obsessive) research on his musical passion, the Beach Boys: “Dennis didn’t get credit for how much musical talent he really had . . . .”

—I have an inspiration. Cadillac Man will love this. When he pauses, I say:

“We can name the baby birds after the Wilsons. Since’s there’s three of them.”

He grins. “Well, these little birds are singers.”

Brian is due to hatch next Sunday. Dennis and Carl should follow on Monday and Tuesday.

Even if they’re female, it will be fun, fun, fun . . . .

The homecoming

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

Last summer, a pair of finches made a nest on the wreath on my front door. I watched their family develop, day by day: Four eggs, four baby birds, four fledglings taught how to fly by their parents, and then they were gone.

I suffered empty nest syndrome. Literally.

I took wreath down for the winter and saved the little nest, because I didn’t have the heart to destroy a thing so beautifully made by tiny creatures that don’t have hands.

A Christmas wreath hung on the door until I finally got around to removing it in late January (well, it was festive; it brightened the winter-bleak days).

And I re-hung the “finch wreath,” which is clearly for springtime, but . . . I confess . . . I was hoping . . . .

And along mid-February—might it have been Valentine’s Day? Really?—I heard them.

The tell-tale cheerful chirps, the sweetest bird music, right outside my door.

My heart sang, too: You’re back, you’re back! Welcome home! 

They built a new nest and then . . . nothing.

For weeks, nothing.

I began to worry, which makes no sense, because these tiny birds are much more adept at survival than I am. My worry was mostly selfish, I realized. I wanted the birds here, didn’t want them to change their minds, find another place. I wanted to hear their happy voices every morning, wanted the joy they unknowingly impart, wanted to see new life happen again.

Every day, I checked. The perfect little nest was barren. No finches in sight or within hearing.

The temperatures dropped below freezing again. Just as I began to fear that some fate had befallen my finch friends, I wondered: Is it possible that they knew another freeze was coming? That they built the nest as planned, right on schedule, but that they can hold off laying eggs until the cold spell passes? Can that happen?

Then, early yesterday morning, a chorus of chirpy cheer outside my door!

I had to go see . . .

—I have an egg!

Today at the exact same time will be another egg, tomorrow, maybe another, and soon I’ll know how big my little finch family will be.

But for now I just reflect, with reverential awe, on how the first egg came with the first bit of welcome warmth on the first day of the week.

My birds are back home, safe in their sanctuary, on Sunday morning.

And I sing for joy.

A fine mess

/ Fran Haley / 18 Comments

After being away on vacation all last week, my first order of business on returning home was to check on the four baby house finches that hatched in the wreath on my front door. I’d been chronicling their development daily, so I knew many changes would occur in my absence.

Here is what I discovered:

1) The babies are now well-feathered; their skin-head mohawks have become mere wisps upon their downy crowns.

2) Two of the babies can fly. They sailed out of the nest this morning as I approached. The other two stayed put, their bright little eyes regarding me with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

3) Their nest is one spectacular conglomeration of droppings.

To be fair, the droppings are only around the rim; the mother collects them there. What a job, building a wall of excrement. Worse than diapers. When I first wrote of the perfect, flower-graced nest, the pale blue eggs, the hatching of the tiny pink nestlings, I concentrated on the beauty and wonder of life. I pointed out that the collective noun for a group of finches is a charm.

And charmed I was.

There is nothing charming about that nest now.

The fledglings themselves, of course, are enchanting. They’ll soon be gone, the circle of life will go on, and all that will remain of these magical moments is a monumental mess.

But that’s the story of life. It’s messy. It can’t be comprised solely of breathtaking beauty and newness; if it were, we could not recognize these moments for what they are. They’d lose their value. Only when contrasted with ugliness, hardships, and pain can we see and cherish the beautiful when it comes. We inevitably deal with messes, some that occur naturally, some created by others, some of our own making. Therein lie all the stories . . .

Which makes me think of writing. This nest is a tangible (although I do not wish to touch it) reminder of these commonalities:

-Life is messy.

-Writing is messy.

-Thinking is messy.

-Teaching is messy.

To do any of these well, we have to be willing to accept and even embrace the messiness. We must certainly persevere through it to arrive at the beautiful. It takes courage, stamina, and a lot of hard work, to write well, to think well, to teach well, to live well.

The strength to do so, I believe, lies in believing that the beautiful will come. It’s all a matter of trust, of faith. And pressing on.

Although I was appalled by the quantity of accumulated—um, bird-doo—around the nest, I was also amazed that two of my four little finches could fly. Last night they couldn’t; today they can. Tomorrow the others might.

This is a message to me about readiness.

Everyone arrives as a writer, a thinker, a teacher, a good practitioner of life, in their own time. Lots of messes will be made along the way. Sorting this out is what grows us. One by one, as children, as adults, as long as we live, we are continually growing the necessary wings to fly beyond where we are. And it’s truly a collective, collaborative growth; we are to nudge each other when needed, but not too hard, too soon. We’re not to hold back, to hold one another back, simply because we cannot see all that lies ahead and for fear of navigating the unknown. Knowledge comes by trying. By experiencing. By taking risks. There’s an implicit difference between throwing caution to the wind and taking a leap of faith, that being potential self-destruction versus healthy maturation. These finches know. As the day wears on, I watch the two fledglings that can fly going back and forth from the eaves to the nest, coaching their other two siblings on how to do it. See see see, I hear them cheeping. A bit at a time, a bit at a time. At any moment, those last two are going to get up on that nasty, messy rim and let go.

In more ways than one . . . .

So you make a mess. So what? So you’re alive and growing.

Tomorrow you stretch your newest feathers and find you can move on.

To where the beautiful awaits.