The Upside-Down Bird and the Creeper

Another winter, another brown creeper (Margo D. Beller)

I see here to-day one brown creeper busily inspecting the pitch pines. It begins at the base, and creeps rapidly upward by starts, adhering close to the bark and shifting a little from side to side often till near the top, then suddenly darts off downward to the base of another tree, where it repeats the same course. This has no black cockade, like the nuthatch.

-- Henry David Thoreau, Journal, Nov. 26, 1859

It is almost the same day 159 years later and the brown creeper I am watching is doing the exact same thing Thoreau saw in his woods, living up to its name by creeping deliberately up a stout tree.

I am in a small park in my town, carefully walking in the frozen slush, and I have stopped to watch some robins. Then I see movement against the brown-gray of the tree and there is the creeper, almost perfectly camouflaged, the movement of its head showing the white below and thus giving it away.

I stand and watch it a long time as it carefully climbs the tree, sticking its long, decurved bill into every crevice. It makes a faint sound that, because I only seem to find these birds in late autumn into winter, is not as familiar to me as that of the nearby white-breasted nuthatch, whose call sounds like hank. 

Creepers, according to the bird people at Cornell, build their nests behind peeling tree bark. Is this bird looking for food or a nest site? The range map shows this bird is a year-round resident of northern New Jersey. They mainly eat insects but will also come to suet feeders. I've never had one there.

That is not the case with the white-breasted nuthatch, which I see at my sunflower seed feeders every day they are out. This bird is not quiet, shy or easily missed like the creeper, it is a pugnacious little bird that stands out. It will fly to the house feeder, cling to the roof, dip its head down and grab a seed even as a larger bird such as a cardinal is sitting inside and eating. When a nuthatch flies in, the house finches scatter, as do most of the smaller birds.

I went to the oaks. Heard there a nuthatch's faint vibrating tut-tut, somewhat even like croaking of frogs, as it made its way up the oak bark and turned head down to peck. Anon it answered its mate with a gnah, gnah.
-- Thoreau, Journal, April 6, 1856

White-breasted nuthatch (Margo D. Beller)

Watching the creeper now, I see the nearby white-breasted nuthatch uses an entirely different technique. It does not start at the bottom and work its way up, it flies high and goes up the tree or turns its head around and goes down. For that reason it is called by some the "upside-down bird" because few birds will travel a tree with head down. Even the woodpeckers, climbing trees with their tails bracing them, will go backwards but will not go down head first.

The white-breasted nuthatch, despite having a whole tree at its disposal, now flies at the creeper to force it away so it can examine that spot. The creeper flies to the other side of the trunk, where I can no longer see it. Another nuthatch, on a nearby tree, calls and this one answers.

Unlike the creeper, the only one of its type, there are three types of eastern nuthatches, the white-breasted, the red-breasted and the brown-headed. (I have seen all three.) The brown-headed is found as far north as Delaware, although occasionally one hitches a ride on the Cape May-Lewes ferry and shows up to thrill birders in New Jersey. Its call is high-pitched and squeaky, more like a mouse than a bird.

The red-breasted is a bird of northern, piney woods but in some years, such as this one, it can't find enough food and so moves south. This phenomenon is called irruption, and we have them most winters although the birds flying south may vary. (One year it was snowy owls.)

Besides the red breast, this bird is easily identified by the black line that runs through the eye. Its call is another pitch entirely from the white-breasted nuthatch and usually faster. This year I saw several in the larches on the outskirts of a dog park near me for one bright morning, but it was only that one day.

If I am lucky, a red-breasted nuthatch will come to my feeder, too, but usually it is quickly chased off by the slightly larger white-breasted. That has been the case so far this season - a blink-and-you'll-miss-it visit by a red-breasted nuthatch that was just figuring out how to take a seed when it was chased off by the white-breasted. I hope it got a chance to come back and get a seed or two before heading for a pine forest.

White-breasted nuthatch about to force off a titmouse.
(Margo D. Beller)

Renewing Vows, With Rakes

Go to any search engine and type in "renewing vows" and you'll find plenty of ideas for throwing what to me is mainly an excuse for a big party and a trip to an exotic locale. Many couples who have been married for decades like to do these renewals, as if the warranty on their marriage is about to expire and they'd better do something about it quick.

MH and I, who have been married for decades, aren't ones for big parties or exotic locales. We do things our own way. We renew our vows every Autumn when we must go into the backyard and tackle raking the fallen leaves.

Maple leaves, before the fall (Margo D. Beller)

With all the rain we had during the last weeks of summer, MH and I were not sure what we would get in the way of autumn color. When things did finally begin to color, they seemed patchy and uneven. Many trees stayed full of green leaves. But then it got cold and it seemed almost overnight the leaves started to turn. For about a week we had intense color that made it a joy to be outside.

That changed very recently when the winds started blowing and we had a brief warmup. There are now many more bare trees, or trees where the leaves are shriveled and brown, the overwhelming color.

I had to rake pods to the curb last year but not this year!
(Margo D. Beller)

When we first moved here and realized what we had on our property, we didn't know what to do with all the pods that fell from the one female black locust tree in our front yard (the other three are males; all were planted by our town, which is responsible for their maintenance). I collected them in an old garbage pail and kept it in a back corner of the property, where I now have my compost pile. What a relief to learn the next year we could put them at the curb with the leaves!

This year, there are few pods on the front lawn and the bulk of the leaves are in the back. We used to use a bed sheet in our raking but now use a very large tarp, which means fewer but heavier trips to the curb.

The other day was our first foray into this year's raking (this does not count when MH used his mower for the last time to mulch the leaves, or I collected leaves in a leaf vac to put into compost). We have a routine. I take out the blower we bought after the first year of raking and herd the leaves into piles. MH comes out with his gloves and rake and starts pulling other leaves from the edges to those piles. I grab my own rake and start putting the piles into the tarp we've spread out. He goes to the opposite side of the tarp from where I work and does the same. We hold down the tarp edges with our feet to get as many leaves in as we can. I push leaves into the center to make room for more. By the time we decide it can take no more, we have a heavy load to drag to the front of our house.

Befitting our personalities, he quietly does his job while I noisily try to get him to do something to, I think, make the process more efficient. He listens and agrees about half the time.

Black-capped chickadee (Margo D. Beller)

As we work there are birds calling around us, waiting in the dogwood tree or the shrubs to see if we will bother them as they fly to the feeders we work near. One black-capped chickadee has a more metallic-sounding call. "Could that be a Carolina-blackcap hybrid?" MH asks. Possibly, I say. Carolina chickadees tend to be in the southern part of New Jersey but who knows anymore as birds once considered "southern" now become more common up here.

Same with the raven we hear croaking its call as it flies overhead. Ravens used to be found in high elevations but we've been hearing them more often in our neighborhood, which is only about 400 feet above sea level. We stop to look for it and see its wide, spade-like tail as it sails by. I am impressed by MH. He has become more of a birder now after all our years together. Although most of the time he says he can't identify even the most common of birds without my help, there are some he now knows after being willing to listen to their calls. Having more eyes and ears out in the field is a great help to me.

Brook color (Margo D. Beller)

Otherwise, we don't talk much until we get to the curb and then we yell at each other if one's movements threatens to unbalance the other. I notice another older couple up the street are using their rakes to push leaves to the curb. They don't use a blower. They may not even use a tarp. They seem to have steel arms. If they hear me yell at MH they politely ignore it. They don't make a sound and work in sync. They're a partnership, too.

I think of how I used to do a lot myself. But now, while I can rake, use the blower (which shakes me painfully) and even put leaves into a tarp, there is no way I can drag down a heavy, leaf-laden tarp or empty it alone anymore. For that, as with so many things, I need my partner.

As if to mock us, the day after we finish our raking the wind blows and the lawn becomes more littered than it was before. Way too many leaves to use the mower on them. We'll just wait for the rest to come down, go out with rakes and tarp and then finish the job for another year. Until then, there's no rush. 

I Am Thoreau

"Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of 500 or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation."

-- from the journal of Henry David Thoreau

There are two times when I am especially glad to be at home, working at irregular hours if at all -- when the day is gray, rainy and cold (keeping me inside anyway) and when the day is glorious (and I want nothing more than to be outside).

Autumn color, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

In October, the weather went from September warm to November cold before settling on "normal" - whatever that is anymore. The continued rain had kept most of the trees leaves green but in the last week, with the return of "normal," the trees that hadn't lost all their leaves have suddenly popped with color. 

For the longest time in my backyard the white oak, normally the last tree to color, was the first. But now the elm is glowing gold, the red oak leaves are scarlet, the Norway maple went crimson and the small sugar maple in the corner by the compost pile is a brilliant yellow. Of course, now the wind has started howling and the trees are dropping leaves quickly.

During this week, I went out to the local park to enjoy some of this foliage while it lasted, on a clear and cold day where the blue of the sky made the colors so grand I was even more glad to be alive than usual.

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” -- Thoreau

Walking along the cobblestoned memorial path took me past the crab apple trees filled with berries, which were being scarfed down by robins. I don't get robins in my yard much unless they show up in the dogwood or the viburnun and other hedges before the squirrels can get to the fruit. But here they were in their glory. There were also starlings gathered at the tops of trees and on telephone wires. 

Maple in the park (Margo D. Beller)

Then they suddenly flew off and when I studied them closely I saw why - a sharp-shinned hawk was in their midst. The starlings veered one way, the small accipiter another. It wasn't interested in a starling meal.

Thoreau, in his books and journals, writes about the restorative qualities of being in nature, and the importance of slowing down and paying attention to what you see and hear. When I go into the woods now I tend to walk slowly although when I am with MH and his balky knees I tend to walk on ahead and then stop to look and listen while he catches up. Here in this park, next to my town's library, I can see the brook has risen almost to the top of its banks because of the recent rain. I can hear the soft notes of the white-throated sparrow. I can enjoy the turkey vultures sailing around in the wind.

And then one lands in a treetop before my approach prompts it to fly to the top of a telephone pole, where it spreads its wings and hangs out. I stop to watch it and take a picture to show MH. Around me are cars driving too fast in the road, people power-walking, joggers, dog walkers. None are aware of this big, black bird sitting over their heads. They are more disturbed by my standing there, presuming they notice me at all (which most do not).

Turkey vulture (Margo D. Beller)

This is the moment when I do not miss having a "regular" job that takes me away from my home for 12 hours a day and keeps me in a state of stress between my obligations and my commute. (I've done train and car; it makes no difference.) Yes, I don't make the money I once did and I don't get the benefits. Thoreau had the same problem. If he had his way he'd always be in the woods, measuring the depth of Walden Pond, watching the birds, talking to the neighbors about the animals or fish they hunted. 

But even Thoreau had to make a living once in a while to help out his family besides his writing. He ran a school in Concord. He taught the children of Ralph Waldo Emerson's brother in Staten Island, NY. He taught Emerson's own children. He lectured. He surveyed. He sold pencils made in his father's factory. "Work" was a necessary evil and he did it as little as possible.

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” --Thoreau

When I can't take hours out of my day to go outside, I feel terrible. Having read Laura Dassow Wells' 2017 biography "Thoreau: A Life," I know Thoreau never felt he wasted time walking the Concord roads during a full moon or traveling to a much wilder Cape Cod than you'd find now. He felt the wasted time was the time he spent working at a job. 

Crab apples (Margo D. Beller)

I am almost 20 years older than Thoreau was when he died in 1861. On my worst days, I can walk outside and feel better, almost as though I did not have any health problems. Of course, I feel it later. But seeing a bird I've never seen before, or seeing one I haven't seen for years is wonderful. When my city friends wonder at what I know of birds, I tell them I was not born with this knowledge, I had to seek it out in the field and then my reference books. Just as Thoreau did.

I am lucky there are so many parks within walking or driving distance of my home, and that I have the strength and stamina (and companion) to enjoy them. I am lucky I have enough money and no debt to afford this current state of my life. I allow myself to be surprised by what I find rather than tick birds off a list. 

I would never compare my powers of observation to Thoreau's. I have the advantage of strong binoculars, detailed field guides and land set aside for hiking that is not someone's private property. But Thoreau had the advantage of a (then) small town where he was known, indulged and allowed to wander. He did not have paved highways and fast cars and industrial noise and lights polluting the sky. He could see more, even if he was not always correct about what he was seeing. It informed his writing, which is why "Walden" and his other books are still read generations after his death.

You can decide for yourself if wandering has made me, like him, a better writer. But I do feel like a better person.

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”  -- Thoreau

My Walden Pond - Reservoir, Central Park of Morris County
(Margo D. Beller)