a pantoum

Under the eaves
a porch
on the porch
a chosen door

a porch
sanctuary
a chosen door
from the other side, I hear

sanctuary:
father finch feeding nesting mother
from the other side, I hear
a song of love

father finch feeding nesting mother
on the porch
a song of love
under the eaves

Short clip of my house finches, which return every spring to nest in my door wreath (the finches don’t know that I purposely put out the twiggy grapevine wreaths they like best). Crank the volume to hear their beautiful voices. You might even catch a glimpse of wings as the father flies off to fetch more food for the mother. He will feed her until their little blue eggs hatch and then they’ll both feed their babies. In listening, it’s easy to understand how “charm” became the collective noun for finches and why they are said to symbolize joy.

House finches have an interesting history. From the Audubon Field Guide:

“Adaptable, colorful, and cheery-voiced, House Finches are common from coast to coast today, familiar visitors to backyard feeders. Native to the Southwest, they are recent arrivals in the East. New York pet shop owners, who had been selling the finches illegally, released their birds in 1940 to escape prosecution; the finches survived, and began to colonize the New York suburbs. By 50 years later they had advanced halfway across the continent, meeting their western kin on the Great Plains.”

also this, from the House Finch Overview, Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

“House Finches feed their nestlings exclusively plant foods, a fairly rare occurrence in the bird world.”

These are things I have learned. I continue to learn the lessons of the finches as they fill my home and heart to overflowing with a rare, almost-otherworldly joy.

House Finch mosaic. wolfpix. CC BY-ND 2.0.

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