A Miscellany of Spring Birds
A Miscellany of Spring Birds
Two poems and a bit of a diary
Hopefully a few diary entries today won’t be amiss.
The roster of birds this spring was glorious. We are living far outside any city areas and many of our neighbors are cows and such, so we get the birds of the open countryside.
And house sparrows, yes. Plenty of those! They were introduced to North America a couple of hundred years ago. I would say they have spread with more success than wisdom, as they were common even around our home in Arizona, where they were not particularly well-adapted, though they generally seemed to survive fairly well. They like to co-exist with horses, of which I currently have four, so enough said. We have house sparrows.
But we also have some of the smaller native sparrows about the place here. The White-Crowned Sparrow is the most common of this lot, handsome with black and white stripes across the head. Chipping Sparrows are more shy and show up less often. They can be recognized by the bright russet cap and also by their small, soft “chipping” call, a friendly sound in a large field. And we think that my sister may have spotted a Grasshopper Sparrow the other day.
But there are so many other birds. As spring brought them to our hillside, I wrote a poem about them. It’s rather in the style of a children’s poem, perhaps because I was so excited by them all. And yes, each of these birds was out and about our home with their various calls, songs, and springtime enthusiasms—much of it simultaneous. It was quite noisy out here!
The Birds of Spring
The killdeer and the meadowlarks,
The mockingbirds and jays,
Go singing through the sunlight
And the bright spring haze.
The jays are meeting neighbors
While sparrows chit and chat,
And the mockingbirds are tuning
To sing this and that.
The killdeer cry like pipers
While the redbirds sing of love,
But the meadowlarks are greeting
The great skies above.
The mockingbirds are merry,
And the bobwhite calls for two,
But the meadowlarks are greeting
The great skies of blue.
The breeze is in their feathers,
And the sun may hear them sing,
So the meadowlarks go greeting
The great skies of spring.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Eastern Meadowlark, here is a lovely video from YouTube:
They are truly beautiful birds, and I am happy we have so many singing from the high treetops, electric lines, and any other perch that strikes their fancy.
One unexpected visitor has only appeared more recently.
I have crossed paths twice lately with a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. It was just a quick encounter the first time, but the second time he was bold enough to stay around among the flowers in my tiny garden patch.
First was a visit to the dianthus (D. x “Frosty Fire” is flowering profusely). Then came a quick dart away, then a quicker return. The first daylilies have opened, and I must say that it was a delightful sight to see such a tiny bird—with his irridescent green back— perched on the great open curve of a yellow daylily petal.
I have tried to plant a pollinator-friendly mini-garden here, and it seems to meet the approval of our little hummer as well. All to the good!
Finally, a completely different sort of entry, this one for the amusement of my gardening friends familiar with using botanical names:
Recently I received an entirely unsolicited and presumably bot-generated email directed to my garden blog at smallsunnygarden.com. Its vague language left little doubt that there was no human-to-human communication going on. Nevertheless, it informed me with great certainty and sang-froid that there was a spelling error on my blog--the word ‘vulgare’.
Email deleted.
Here is one more poem from the spring birds:
Wings of Spring
The spring has come. I see the fervent flight
Of lovers on swift wings that wrap the air
About their feathers, intertwine the light
Within their loves, and dart into the lair
Of furtive shrubs or up the treetops’ stair
To meet the glorious opening of day.
I hear their voices, passionate, declare
The joy of warmth and sunlight, glow and ray,
The wealth of wind as treetops bow and sway
Beneath their revels. And my heart makes free
With springtime’s promise wrested from the grey
Of grasping winter; and my soul makes plea
Amid the lovers’ frolics, nature’s cheer,
For days untouched with pain, nor fraught with fear.