The Stranger

It is a cloudy weekday morning with a chance of rain. The young woman pushing the baby carriage down the grassy park path sees a figure ahead. The figure is in black - pants, wool cap, raincoat. The woman has a moment of panic and hesitates, but as she comes closer she sees the figure is another woman who is wearing binoculars on a harness. This woman is leaning on a large walking stick and looking intently into a weedy area. She looks up, notes where the woman with the carriage is walking, and goes back to looking into the weeds. The woman with the carriage passes by. They don't speak.

(Margo D. Beller)

A short time later an older couple, each walking a large dog on a leash, also sees the woman in black. They come down the small hill from the parking area where the woman has also parked. They see her and the binoculars. The woman sees them and the dogs. She walks to the other side of the path from where the dog walkers go, her back to them, looking up into the trees. When they leave she goes back over to the weeds and continues to watch.

After a time she shifts her position as the birds' calls draw her attention. Over here, a flock of goldfinches. Over there, palm warblers, a little duller in color but looking not much different from their spring plumage, batting their tails every time they alight on a tree branch or tall weed. 

The woman looks over and sees the couple coming back. Once again she shifts her position away from them. Once again they look at her. No one speaks. The couple goes down a hill and are gone to another part of the park. The woman goes back to finding the calling sparrows her Merlin app says are in the area. She will ultimately find six types of sparrows that come out of the weeds and sit in the open just long enough for the woman to see and identify them.

I have been doing this a long time and knew what I was seeing. 

The weedy area ahead of me is in a depression that, ringed by ragweed and filled with that, some milkweed, goldenrod and other weeds, provides a deep, relatively secure hiding and foraging place for the sparrows, warblers and other birds I found there. I had discovered this birdy area, located behind a playground and picnic area at the Central Park of Morris County (formerly the Greystone Psychiatric Hospital), after birding in a different area of the park the day before. I came on this weekday morning to explore it further without the crowd of noisy people the park draws for after-school soccer practice or weekend sporting events.

The weedy field. (Margo D. Beller)

I try to imagine what others see when we encounter each other. I usually wear a hat to protect my scalp from sun and bug bites. I keep my hair down and my shirt and jacket collars up to protect my ears and neck. I wear gloves tho' if I use Merlin or write something in my notebook I have to expose a hand.

I figure the binoculars is what allows people to relax, realizing I'm just some old bird watcher and not a sex offender or thief ready to ambush them. Still, I must look strange all covered up as others are walking or running the same paths in shorts and T-shirts.

Greystone, as I still call it, is a more-open piece of property than some of the places I go to bird. Where the playground sits once stood stone dormitories for the patients. I don't know if the weedy depression where I stand was there before and, if so, its use. But Greystone is filled with weedy areas, and at this time of year they provide food and shelter for migrating birds and those that will be hanging around for the winter.

Ragweed, in another part of Greystone. (Margo D. Beller)

When I am in areas where the paths are more narrow people passing me will sometimes say hello or good morning or even ask me what I am seeing or have seen. Runners don't usually speak to me unless it is to say "on your left" as they pass. Most people on bikes say nothing, don't even ring a bell. I have to hope to hear them coming so I don't step in their way. If I hear them and step out of the way maybe one in three thanks me.

Most of the time I am not out there to be sociable or exercise, I am out there looking for birds, particularly during the migration periods in spring - when birds are colorful and singing - and autumn - when they are dull and, if I'm lucky, making soft contact calls.  

One of the narrow paths I usually walk.
(Margo D. Beller)

People with dogs can be troublesome, particularly if their dogs are not on a leash. I used to make comments but after a few times I stopped because the reactions ranged from ignoring me to downright hostility. Concerned birders know unleashed dogs can kill birds. Dog owners know these concerned birders can be troublesome, too. We pass each other and I hope they don't come back this way.

Most times the people I see with dogs are pleasant, leash their pets and clean up after them. If the dogs are friendly I pet them. Since Covid there seems to be more people spending time outside in the parks, often with the dogs they bought during the pandemic. When someone is heading my way with a dog I stand aside and let them pass.

If they look at me as strange, I don't care. They are strange to me, too.

Resurgence

Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans.

  -- John Lennon

The blue iris that suddenly appeared. (Margo D. Beller)

Hello! It has been a while. Time has a way of running away when you're not paying attention. In my case a combination of Covid prevention, cancer treatments and work stress had kept me occupied and not in the best state of mind. But today, Memorial Day, I have gotten my weekend chores out of the way and I'm not working - perfect for gathering my thoughts and catching up.

Azaleas 2022
(Margo D. Beller)

Since I last wrote we had a less snowy but very cold winter followed by a bit of spring when the trees started to bud and the grass started to go green. Then, in late April into early May, it was damp and chilly, which was good for the outdoor plants but not for me, who was itching to put out my pepper pots before the little flies killed them. The same with my canna pots, covered in the garage. The cannas went out first - a month late - while it was still in the 40s overnight. Finally, around the time we went to visit family for Mother's Day, I put out the peppers, two types of basil I had bought at the local Agway and the pot of coleus I kept over the winter. All are enclosed in a wire cage, of course, because we still have plenty of deer. 

What we didn't have were migrating birds. By the time I took the feeders in for the summer, the migration radar I look at showed the strong winds out of the north and northeast that brought the cold and rain had detoured the birds coming up on the southerly  winds into the midwest. Then, many of them hung a right and flew over the mid-Atlantic region where I live and, eventually, into New England and beyond. 

Columbine, behind the deer netting. 
(Margo D. Beller)

Once we returned from New Hampshire (where we didn't have much in the way of warblers except for the pine, one of the earliest migrants) the heat came at us - midsummer heat in May with strong thunderstorms. The weeds started to grow in the front walkway and in the garden beds. If I wanted to walk it had to be early. One such weekday morning I went to Greystone as the sun was hitting a tree near the back path where I walk. It was filled with calling birds. I had a few such mornings, when I could force myself out of bed at first light so I would have time before work. 

The day after I should have put up the wren box, a house wren appeared at the water dish when we happened to be sitting on the porch, and then it flew off. The box went up (my husband spotting me as I went up the ladder at the dogwood tree) but no bird has come. Same with the hummingbirds - nothing, despite my feeder and the pink flowers of the geranium and coral bells in back, the red azeleas in front and the purple columbine everywhere. (Usually I start seeing hummers in June but I start putting sugar water out in May because, as they say, you never know.)   

By the time we took our annual trip to Old Mine Road to listen for the territorial calls of breeding birds (in the ridges near the Delaware Water Gap) I knew migration was just about over. This was the point when I started doing garden chores, including using my edger around the ornamental grass garden and lugging soil and mulch to the area behind the porch where the heavy rains had eroded the dirt and left it muddy when I'd go out with the feeders. Now, no more mud (but no more feeders either, until maybe Labor Day).

Lenten rose 2022 (Margo D. Beller)

There have been birds around my yard, singing as I have worked or sat on my porch - red-eyed vireo, titmouse, chickadee, cedar waxwings, various woodpeckers and what I call the Big Four of robin, catbird, cardinal and song sparrow. (The juncos and white-throated sparrows are long gone.) There has also been a mockingbird that does a very good imitation of a Carolina wren, so good that when a real wren was singing I had to listen hard to make sure of it. We even had some warblers passing through including an orange-crowned that spent the day calling from a neighbor's bush, a Nashville (my 100th yard bird) whose large eye ring makes identification simple and a few blackpolls, whose call I associate with the end of migration (this bird has one of the longest migration routes).

Peonies, again behind deer netting.
(Margo D. Beller)

The snowdrops, crocus and glory of the snow started the growing season. Then the daffodils, which did very well this year, as did the azaleas, the irises and the hyacinth. The columbines in front and back decided to flower, the peony finally opened its big, red flowers and the rhododendron is tall and healthy with pink flowers that bloomed as the azaleas were fading. As usual, I was relieved when the sedums, the coneflower, the rose of Sharon and the liriope started growing again and now the peppers (including one I bought to hedge my bets) are showing signs of life.

There were also some surprises. For the first time in many years, a blue iris appeared in one of my garden plots, in the same spot as last time. I still don't know where it came from but I welcome it. I also discovered a jack in the pulpit under my hedge among the usual weeds - this is one plant I am not touching as I yank out the others. One sunny day I found a garter snake in one plot, and I am hoping it sticks around to keep down the chipmunks. The Lenten rose, which at one point I thought had been killed by the cold, bloomed profusely and only now those flowers have faded and been covered by large, green leaves. 

Another surprise: Last year there were three milkweed plants that suddenly appeared near the lilacs. This year there are eight. I am hoping that this year they bloom and help the endangered monarch butterfly population.

The area behind the porch where 
I put down heavy buckets
of soil and mulch.
(Margo D. Beller)

There have also been weeds, of course. One early morning I took out the lopper to get at the ones I could not reach because of the deer netting. The bigger ones I could reach over and pull out. I could easily identify ragweed and garlic mustard but another one looked like it could be a wild sunflower. However, when it is in the wrong bed it is still a weed. I found more of them in other areas and pulled them out, except for one in a place where it doesn't threaten anything so I can leave it and see what it becomes. 

The weeds made me despair, as usual, but this year I've decided to put down sheets of black garden fabric (weed block) to kill those near the compost pile (which finally got turned and the rich soil removed), in an area erroneously known as the "dead area" but is anything but. We now have someone to cut and edge our lawn regularly, and that not only makes the grass look better while keeping down the ubiquitous ground ivy but it makes me determined to do something with those areas not mowed.

Also sprouting: fences. Neighbors on either side of me decided to put in solid, white, vinyl privacy fences. To do that, one neighbor cut down the bush that worked very well as a privacy fence and also fed the local deer. (I can only wish I had a fence to block the goings-on of the neighbor along the long side of my yard, who hacked down the forsythia and other plants that had obscured our yards a few years ago.)

The fence replacing the bush: vinyl on 3 sides, wood in back.
The wood has since been painted white.
(Margo D. Beller)

This need for privacy comes out of the violent times we live in, and perhaps the lingering coronavirus. The younger people now living on my street want to keep their families contained and thus "safe" from the outside world. They do not seek me out; nor do I seek them out. I keep to myself. I try to be friendly but I frankly do not understand a lot of what is considered "modern" nowadays, and perhaps that showed. When my cancer treatment was at its worse during the summer I stayed indoors and the weeds ran rampant, including along our front walkway. This year, I am well enough to regularly spray my walkways with a cocktail of vinegar and salt - easy to make and not lethal to birds while it kills the weeds. 

There is much more that needs to be done - gutter cleaning, power washing, cutting back some overgrown trees - but not today. For today, at least, I can enjoy the early coolness (before the expected July-like heat) and the quiet (before the inevitable suburban cookout gatherings) that come with a work holiday. 

 

Looking Inward

When I sit on my enclosed back porch, I am usually in my favorite old chair in the corner. I can look to my left and see the feeders but my back is to two of the surrounding houses and I try not to look too much at the third house. When I sit on my porch it is to get away from people and not think about the things I must do such as work. Generally, I am sitting there to listen to the birds in the morning, get some sun on my face as I have my first cup of coffee and let my mind wander.

Porch plants in summer (Margo D. Beller)

Today is a gray, foggy, rainy day, making it easy to look inward and ponder life and death. I am facing surgery this week and trying to keep a positive attitude.

Thanks to the coronavirus, I have a lot of time to look within, maybe too much. I have been spending most of my time at home. On days when I should be walking I sit on the porch and listen. I can find in my backyard many of the same birds I'd find elsewhere. Sometimes something unusual will fly overhead, such as a great blue heron or a raven. I can see or hear these through a porch window or if I stand just outside on the patio.

I have always kept to myself, now even more so. I wave at neighbors, they wave back but we don't socialize. People walking in the street make sure they are on the other side of the road if I am walking along. When I go around the block, I am usually more nervous on the one side of the oval that is on a sidewalked street because there anyone approaching prompts a quandary: Do I walk into the street as we pass or will that person? It is easier to walk on my U-shaped street where there are no sidewalks and I can see my house as I approach.

Looking toward the back of the house from my 
corner chair (Margo D. Beller)

From my corner chair I look at the back of my house. But when the weather is consistently warm I will have plants on the porch to keep me company. These plants don't need a lot of direct light and will appreciate the humidity after a dry winter in my front room. It is not that time yet. 

I also look at a row of empty pots in another corner of the porch. They remind me I have cannas to divide and dahlias to plant, plus a small pepper plant and a tomato to put into bigger pots and move outside. 

From my chair I can see the house feeder. Usually
in May rosebreasted grosbeaks pass through. 
These two are males. I hope to
see more this year. (Margo D. Beller)

Spring is a busy time for me. Besides the plants there are the northbound migrants I would like to see and hear, perhaps birds I have not found for quite some time. It is harder for my husband (MH) and me to hike rocky or hilly trails nowadays. Paths should be reasonably flat and, preferably, paved to save balky knees. This can be limiting but I enjoy MH's company and he is helpful in finding snakes and things on the ground while I am scanning the treetops.

I am looking ahead to that time when we can go out more and not worry about who is near us and whether we have on masks. I'm even looking at the compost pile, which hasn't been turned in too long, with some degree of expectation. But mostly I'm looking within, wondering if I have everything arranged in case the worst happens. As I said, I'm trying to stay positive, but it is not easy. 

Putting Things in Order

When February's snows finally receded in March, I could no longer ignore the devastation of last winter. Branches of shrubs were bent low. Fence posts were askew. Some of the deer netting had been pulled down under the snow's weight or pushed up by hungry deer looking for any food they could find.

March 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

When the snow was gone and the weather became unusually warm for March it was time to put things in order.

All of the plants are perennials and can take care of themselves. Once the snow was gone, the snowdrops and crocuses popped up, albeit a month late. When the temperature jumped into the upper 60s and low 70s, these faded but the daffodils and irises, which had been poking their noses up from the soil, jumped out and, in the case of the daffs, are blooming. Several types of weeds have also come up with no help from me, and a few dandelions are blooming between the cracks in the paving stones on the front walk.

The apple and pear trees plus the shrubs are now either leafing or blooming. To some the bright pink of the quince may look garish next to the yellow of the forsythia in the backyard but I don't mind it at all.

There is more birdsong: cardinals, robins, song sparrows. I am now hearing chipping sparrows and chipmunks, the former welcomed for its dry trill, the latter not so much because of the digging they do even behind the deer netting.

Hellebore. Since I took this
picture it is now flowering.
(Margo D. Beller)

But there are things that need human attention. The butterfly bush and liriope needed to be cut back in early March and are now growing again. Same with the dried ornamental grasses I hacked down and now showing green growth. At some point I have dahlias to pot and cannas to divide. 

Finally, there was the fencing. After the deer found a weakness in the netting and were able to nearly destroy the euonymous bushes in front yet again, I cut everything back, reinforced and tied the netting and fastened it down with garden "staples." Had I known what to expect when I put in these yellow and green evergreen shrubs, I'd have put in something less appetizing to deer.

The area most in need of repair, however, was in back where I cover the netting with burlap to protect the yew shrubs behind. Out of sight, out of trouble is my motto. With these shrubs are other plants that don't need a lot of sun including two pots of hostas I took in for a friend and a hellebore that has bloomed despite the soil being more acidic than it would like. The joe-pyes grow here, as do a pot of perennial geranium, coral bells that attract hummingbirds and a few fringed bleeding hearts.

Repurposing the garden hose
(Margo D. Beller)

It was a job that took many hours because I had to cut back the yews and remove debris from the potted plants. Then the burlap had to be removed, the garden staples pulled up and the deer netting untied or cut off. New netting was put on (doubled above and below) the posts that I thought weren't too bent or shredded from use. I took new, thick garden ties to secure it above and many more garden staples to do the same below. It is both aggravating and calming work that allows me to be outside and listening to the birds.

Finally, I took the old garden hose and put it in to block an opening. Many years ago, a deer got behind the netting and then tried to leave. I woke up to find half the netting was in the yard. Luckily, that was the day I had planned to put in new posts anyway. More recently, a doe put her newborn fawn in back. I had to pull up the posts to let it out. Around that time we got a new hose and so the old one became a deer barrier. (The other end is close to a leader pipe so I can tie the netting to it.)

It is a good feeling to put things in order. When it becomes really hot and things start to overgrow the neatness will disappear. Soon my husband (MH) and I will have to bring out the canna and dahlia pots and get them behind the netting somehow. Weeds will fill the spaces between the plants and create a green carpet I don't need along the walkways. For now I enjoy this feeling of accomplishment when I look at my handiwork.

Backyard daffodils, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Nowadays I am putting other things in order, in my life. I will be having cancer surgery in the coming week, a repeat of surgery I had five years ago. I am five years older now, survived a visit to the emergency room because of blood clots and am living in a time when the coronavirus pandemic shows no signs of ending, even with more people (including me) getting vaccinated. I can be hopeful I come through but there is always that possibility something will go wrong. So I am making lists for MH and talking, virtually and via social media, to good friends and family ahead of time. I am writing here. 

Daffodils are blooming, birds are singing. There is so much more to be done. I am looking ahead, but not too far.

Resurfacing

It is hard to believe that a month ago - Valentine's Day - my neighborhood was buried under two feet of snow from the nor'easter Feb. 1. There were several snow storms in February and we were in perpetual white all month. It was only in March the weather started to warm, culminating in one day when the temperature reached nearly 70 degrees F. Now, only the smallest bits of icy snow remain in the shady areas. 

Feb. 22, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

With the end of the snow, some good and bad things resurfaced.

I looked outside one day and saw one yellow crocus in an area where there should've been more. I quickly yanked away a pot I had put behind the deer netting and there were the rest of them, which had come out of the ground and struggled under the weight of the pot. In a few days they recovered, and with them came some purple crocus. These flowers usually come up in February but were now making up for lost time.

In another bed, the snowdrops - another early bloomer - suddenly appeared and flowered a month late. They are sharing the area with many daffodils, my favorite flowers because of their diversity and their not being palatable to deer or chipmunks. The irises are showing signs of life, as are the rhododendron and the azeleas. The maple trees have started to flower, too.

Those are the good things. But there are also bad.

A deer (I'm pretty sure it was the same one) found a weakness in the netting and devoured every leaf of the yellow and green euonymous bushes. Best as I can figure, a deer put its head through an area not well fastened down the first time. Then, when I fixed that, it got up on its hind legs and pushed the netting down until it could reach over and eat more bushes. Finally, after I fixed that it went around to the side to get the last two it couldn't reach before.

Crocuses, March 14, 2021 (Margo D. Beller)

I went out and chopped the bushes back as far back as I could, something I'll be sure to do next autumn. (I know from experience they will grow back.) The netting has been reinforced and more poles put in to fix what the deer's actions bent. Now there is nothing that will interest a hungry deer until the sedum start to grow.

Let's go back to the good.

While I worked to cut back ornamental grasses and the butterfly bush over the past week I could hear plenty of birds singing or calling - robins, cardinals, a song sparrow, redbellied woodpecker, even one of the earliest migrants, the redwinged blackbird. Very large flocks of grackles flew over, not stopping in my area as they did last February. This morning several skeins of Canada geese were flying north. These are the wild geese, not the ones that have made their home in office parks. Those geese will fly up and around and land, knowing they are supposed to move but not knowing why. The wild geese know the frozen ponds in the north are melting.

Snowdrops (Margo D. Beller)

Now that the snow is gone and the air is warming, more people are walking, and that reminds me I have to get back to walking, too. I did not walk much on my town streets in the cold and the park trails were inaccessible to me because of the deep snow. That snow is now gone, as I discovered this morning. COVID-19 has kept many of us indoors, although we used the cold and snow as an excuse, and so it felt good to walk my favorite trail again to see and hear the birds, not all of which I could've also heard in the backyard.

Finally, now that it is easier for us all to get around, I must take the feeders in at night. It was early one morning at the end of March 2015 I opened my kitchen curtains and saw only one of two feeder poles, the other bent to the ground. I have been bringing the feeders in at night ever since except for when thick snow covers in winter, when the bears should be hibernating. (Six months later, on a warm, sunny, late afternoon, I saw a bear pass through my yard after taking down an arm of the other feeder pole as it tried to take off the house-shaped feeder.) The bears will emerge from their dens hungry and, if a male, seeking new territories. So I'm back to taking feeders in at night.

However, the need to put out feeders in the morning gets me out of bed - resurfacing, you could say - and allows me to hear the birdsong, which will only increase as northbound migrants pass through in the next month. So it's not all bad.

Defoliated shrub (Margo D. Beller)

Count Me Out This Year

The morning after the storm
(Margo D. Beller)

This is the 3-day Presidents Day weekend, and that is when the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Ornithology Lab hold the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. It is meant to encourage people to really look at the birds around them and note how many they are seeing. The data gives the scientists information as to what kinds of birds are increasing in numbers, which are declining and where this is happening.

Most birders enjoy the Count and the counting. They like being "citizen scientists" and use the Count as an excuse to go visit as many places as they can (almost like a winter World Series of Birding), see as many birds as they can and then file their reports. I've done that. But I've also written of how I don't like to count because it makes the birding more like work. 

Well, this year, for the first time in many years, I am not participating in the Count. Why? I'll count out the reasons:

1. I forgot it was going on until late Saturday, about midway through the Friday through Monday period.

2. Because of the 2 feet-plus of snow we've had since early this month I can't walk that easily in the places where I usually look for birds. It's costly to send out a plow crew for a town or county with limited manpower and budget. That's why, for instance, at Greystone, the county park near me, only the main road and some of the paved paths are plowed. The unpaved back areas where I would find all sorts of birds, even in winter, are blocked by piled-up snow mountains.

In another area I hike, Patriots Path, I discovered I could walk in one area but only because some sort of heavy vehicle had driven through, pushing down the snow under heavy treads that helped make walking with my stick a tad easier. But other areas of this linear park were not done, I found. I don't walk in deep or uneven snow anymore. The effort is hard on my lungs and using the stick to keep my balance is hard on my arms and neck.

There was a time when I would joyfully walk in deep snow. Falling into a drift and needing my stick to help get me off my back and on my feet was fun then. It's scarier now. I might not make it back up.

Shoveling the front path, again
(Margo D. Beller)

3. There have not been as many birds at my feeders lately. I thought it was my fault. During autumn there were times I left the feeders inside because of the rain or took them in before dark to keep them from bears. Birds go where there is food. If no food is out they go elsewhere and might not be back.

Before the Feb. 1 nor'easter I made sure the three seed feeders and the suet feeder were filled and outside. After the storm ended I used my shovel and my feet to tamp down a walkable path to the two poles so I could brush the white stuff off the feeders and unblock their openings.

I was sure the snow would bring the birds back in greater numbers than I've seen. Maybe they left for less-snowy areas. Maybe the storms killed them. Or maybe there are more birds visiting than I think. I would not know because...

4. I don't have as much time to spend watching. That might seem strange considering during this time of coronavirus I am working at home, but that is the point. I am in my upstairs office working. I can't sit on my porch all day and wait for the birds, especially when it's quite cold outside. I no longer walk to the train and see or hear birds in my neighborhood in the morning. I no longer look out the train window and see a redtail hawk sitting atop a tree in the sunshine, or the ducks in a Meadowlands impoundment. Now I get up, spend a little time on my porch or in the kitchen and then must get to work.

The birds are on the periphery. I get my breakfast and from the kitchen table I see a male downy woodpecker at the suet, or house finches taking seeds. I sit on the porch in the early morning with my first cup of coffee and see a female cardinal, maybe a titmouse. I hear the churring of a redbellied woodpecker. But I can't stay out there. If I am lucky I can look out the open shade in my office and maybe see a chickadee in the locust tree, or I can hear honking Canada geese as I take a walk at dusk around the block.

And finally...

(RE Berg-Andersson)

5. I just don't feel like it. I have been under a lot of stress. The virus has kept me from traveling, from seeing friends and family. My work has become harder and more tiring, and with no commute I don't have any of the down time where my brain could relax. I go from one job (where I make money to pay the bills) to another (taking care of MH and the household chores). That is why this year, even more so than usual, watching for birds and counting them seems more like work. After being cooped up in the house for five days, on the weekends my inclination is to flee, not sit in the house and wait for anything to come to the feeders. But this weather makes fleeing that much more difficult, and that depresses me. 

That's what nearly a year of pandemic life has done to me.

I wish the snow was gone so I could take longer walks in different places and see more birds. But not now. That will have to wait until the spring.

Dreaming

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.

-- Langston Hughes

It is a sunny Saturday morning, no wind, just a bit of bracing chill. I am walking in one of my favorite birding spots, the gravely tour road at Great Swamp. There are no cars passing through. I am alone except for the birds at this hour, the trees filled with warblers, kinglets, tanagers and cardinals while the nearby ponds and brooks have black ducks, mallards, hooded mergansers and wood ducks. At the overlook, a mature bald eagle flies over, the sun shining on its white head. A red-shouldered hawk is sitting on a branch in the near distance, looking for its breakfast.

This is all a dream.

I am on my porch as a nor'easter passes through, wanting to be elsewhere.

Great Swamp in winter (Margo D. Beller)

In reality, at this time of year the warblers and tanagers are gone and most of the other passerines are too busy looking for food to survive the winter to be sitting in a tree waiting for me to see them. The number of ducks that have come to the Swamp from their northern breeding grounds is increasing, so that part of my dream is true. And there is an eagle nest near the Swamp's overlook. 

Aside from being able to see a large number of birds easily, the biggest part of my fantasy is that I am alone.

In normal times, the Swamp, particularly the tour road area, is very popular with birders, dog walkers, bicyclers and some drivers, even in the early morning. But in these times of the coronavirus, the number of people walking or driving through has spiked, the fast-moving cars kicking up the dust. 

I can understand it. I feel it. People have been told by the Centers for Disease Control via the media that no place indoors is safe to be without a mask except for their homes. The adults are working in their homes five days a week, their children doing their school learning remotely. The urge to escape is strong.

The outdoors is safe, as long as people keep their distance. The drivers feel safe to be in their cars with the kids so they drive without a particular direction or plan. A park tour road, even an unpaved one, is a way to work off the restlessness. As for pedestrians, the CDC now says you don't have to wear a mask when taking a walk. You can take your children out of the house. You can walk in your neighborhood or, increasingly, the parks and natural areas where people like me hope to find interesting or unusual birds. That means if I want to see anything, I must get out there early before the crowds build.

Pileated woodpecker (RE Berg-Andersson)

And they do build. MH and I went to a large county park for the first time last week and found a small parking lot; we were lucky to get a legal spot. When we left the cars were lined up in the road waiting to come in. The easier, paved paths were packed with people trying to keep their distance from each other. The path we chose, deemed "moderate" but unexpectedly difficult for tenderfoot hikers like us (in part because of the wet from a heavy rain the day before), also had people, though not as many, some with dogs and more than a few on mountain bikes. No one noticed the birds MH and I were watching, including a pair of majestic pileated woodpeckers.

When I go to more familiar, unpaved areas I find paths that have been eroded by feet and mountain bike wheels, particularly the bikes. Being on a bicycle is another way to get out, get exercise and keep socially distant. But fast-moving bikes in the areas where I see birds can be dangerous (if they don't warn me they are coming) and irritating (when they ride through and the bird I'm trying to identify flies off), particularly when the path is narrow and I must step aside. Several times people, including those on bicycles, have stopped at a distance and asked me what I am watching. They tell me what birds they have seen. One said he had just bought binoculars and wondered what he could see with them. I am glad to talk to these people because I know they are respectful of nature. But most are not.

So I dream. I sit on my enclosed porch, the wind and rain of this year's first nor'easter hitting the windows. I have not put out bird feeders, to the puzzlement of a couple of winter-colored goldfinches flying to one of the feeder poles. Bad weather may keep me inside but the birds must still find food. When the weather is really bad they will hide in the bushes and ride it out. Then, when the storm has passed, it is my privilege to put out food so they can survive another day. To stave off the restlessness that is rising in me I think of areas where there are birds I've never seen. The "Four Corners" area of the U.S. southwest. The Florida Keys. Point Reyes north of San Francisco. Even northern New Hampshire, where the White Mountains are home to boreal chickadees and gray jays.

(Margo D. Beller)

All are places I can't visit as long as a virus ranges that could kill people like MH and me.

When the sun comes up tomorrow, I'll have put the feeders out and then will go somewhere, perhaps the Swamp, for a walk and some birding. I'll listen for the hikers, bikers and cars that, like the birds, pick up in numbers as the sun rises. If people ask, I'll tell them what I'm watching. 

Once I get home, in my head I'll be elsewhere.

When Timing Is Everything

I am no expert. I do not have the training to understand what trees need to grow and thrive aside from the basics of sunlight and water. But this coronavirus year of 2020, which has been topsy-turvy in so many ways, has changed the dynamics of the trees in my front and back yard. 

In this case, events worked in my favor.

All in a day's work. There are more leaves on either
side of what you see here. Nov. 21, 2000
(Margo D. Beller)

I've written before of my front yard black locust trees. The ones on my property - planted on the orders of some long-ago functionary on my town's shade tree commission - are all male trees except for one female. The locusts are the first trees to drop their small, yellow leaves and long stems everywhere I walk. These are the leaves that get tracked into the house.

The amount of long, black locust seed pods on the female tree varies from year to year. Some years, when the tree is full of them, a wind storm drops so many pods the lawn turns black in some areas. Raking them is heavy, tiring work but at least it is only one tree. Several houses down the street have double the work.

Some years, especially the year after a bountiful year, fewer pods are produced, as tho' the tree is catching her breath. This turned out to be one such year, as it was for my apple tree and the white oaks' acorns. Most of the pods came down in one strong wind storm, and because they were so close to the curb there was less distance to rake them. What few were left hanging came down the other week after a particularly violent storm, where the squall line was thin and intense, the wind blowing the heavy rain to look like waves on my street. What detritus was washed away.

The apple tree provided few fruits this year, a relief
for me and the house wren that nests in the box
I put there. (Margo D. Beller)

Meanwhile, in the backyard, oak leaves came raining down earlier than usual. We had our first frost in mid-October and had a week of freezing temperatures, followed by a period of warmer than usual temperatures before a hard freeze at month's end. And we had rain. The white oak, ash (what I once thought were elm trees) and maple trees dropped their leaves seeming at once, thickly covering the grass. 

Luckily, MH had plans to do one more mowing and was able to mulch all the leaves. Mulched leaves help the lawn by decomposing and providing nutrients. Mulching leaves also means not having to rake them into loose piles in the street for the town to take away, presuming the November winds don't blow them back.

After the last intense storm - and we have had a number of intense rain and wind storms this season - I realized all the white oak leaves were off the trees. In fact, all the leaves were off all the trees (except for the red oak trees in the next yard; leaves on the lower part of these trees will stay on until spring), including the apple, the pear and the dogwood. The viburnum shrub still had leaves, which turned a deep bronze (so deep I had to look closely to see if the berries were still there; they were). But that was it. Even the walnut tree in the front yard on the border between our property and a neighbor's had dropped all its leaves. Many has been the year when we've finished with the oak leaves, generally the last to fall, only to find the walnut still leafy, giving me more work to remove the thin, red-brown leaves for weeks after.

So aside from sweeping up baskets full of leaves that had accumulated on the back patio and putting them into compost, I had done very little raking this year. That changed yesterday.

First, I went out with my rake to pull leaves away from the house, the areas at the base of the feeder poles, the flood wall, the patch where I have ornamental grasses. Then, as the leaf blowers elsewhere started their racket, I put on my noise-cancelling earmuffs and began my own blowing. Once MH got himself together we started hauling big tarps full of leaves to the street - ultimately, five tarps full. I left the leaves that piled up around shrubs and other plants. These leaves will get raked out and composted in the spring when the growing begins.

It is essential dahlia tubers be completely
dry before they are stored so they don't rot. This
was one of the many chores I did earlier
than I had last year. (Margo D. Beller)

Yes, it was aching work. The raking put a blister on my hand despite protective gloves while the blower's vibrations affected my arms and hands. MH's sore knees made hauling the tarps to the curb slow work for me and at one point I stepped wrong and hurt my ankle. But the job is done - what blows onto the lawn will stay there until the next time MH mows. Soon enough I expect snow to blanket the lawn anyway.

I keep a sort of almanac on old calendars. Today I looked at it. I didn't mark the last day we raked but last year - when I was underemployed until December and we traveled to Maryland and then to NH during November - I handled my winter prep chores in early November. This year, when I've been working at home and have no plans to travel very far for the holidays, I did those same chores on the last day of October, which was a Saturday. Why so early? On that day, I woke up to find the foliage blackened on the cannas and dahlias, and the coleus plants dead. So I composted and stored for winter. Last year I could do these same chores over the course of several weeks, maybe because 2019 was one of the warmest years ever.

Was the roller coaster of freeze followed by warmer than normal temperatures followed by freeze this year why the oak and walnut trees dropped their leaves so early or why were there fewer acorns, apples and locust pods? Was it the long periods of summer dryness after a wet, cool spring? Or were the trees as stressed as we humans are by what is going on around us in this pandemic year? Did climate change play more of a part than usual?

As I said, I'm no expert. I just know what I see. The relief of finishing one of the year's hardest chores is tempered by a vague sense of dread.

Breakfast With the Birds

It is 32 degrees F at first light. Sitting on my enclosed porch I can see some frost on the neighbor's roof. In my coat, hat and gloves, a blanket on my knees and a large cup of hot coffee in my hands, I do not feel the cold. It is early Sunday morning and I am enjoying a time of peace while the washing machine works inside, behind the closed back door.

I have put out feeders and now I have breakfast with the birds.

Carolina wren at feeder. (Margo D. Beller)

Things start slowly on a Sunday, especially on a cold morning. No leaf blowers, no barking dogs, no shouting children, perhaps one or two people jogging or walking dogs. I take note of what birds I can see or hear as I rest from my week's labors. 

Two goldfinches, now in their winter brown feathers and the male with just a hint of yellow at his throat.

Larger house finches and house sparrows.

A redbellied woodpecker with his brilliant red crown.

Smaller downy woodpeckers, the male with a bit of red on the back of his head.

Blackcapped chickadees, tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches. All fly to the feeder, grab a seed and take off for a safe place to break the seed apart and eat what's within.

Not at the feeders but flying around the yard are juncos. As winter wears on these dark winter visitors will start coming to the feeders. For now, they glean what they can from around the yard.

A Carolina wren sings from various places around the yard, then investigates both seed feeders. 

Male redbellied woodpecker (Margo D. Beller)

A male cardinal calls from the pear tree, watches as the smaller birds come to the house feeder, then flies to the ground to pick at what is dropped, as the squirrels will soon do. This male doesn't seem to like the feeder but his browner mate is not as skittish. She flies to the feeder, shoos away the smaller birds there, has a few seeds and flies off.

Two larger birds fly a few backyards away, American crows. Had they been hawks, such as the Cooper's hawk, and closer the little birds would've flown to avoid the predators. MH always says the hawks have to eat, too. I understand that, but I don't want my feeders to be involved.

One bird not at the house feeder this morning, at least not right now, is the blue jay. It will come to the house feeder, scarf up a lot of seeds and then fly off to digest them, only to return for more. The force of their leaving makes the old feeder swing wildly, and I fear it dropping to the ground and finally breaking apart. So I am glad the jays have not come by while I'm here.

At this time of year, when I am no longer distracted by chasing migrant birds, it is easy to feel depressed and forgotten. There is less daylight. The majority of garden chores are done. Younger neighbors are wrapped up in their families. Older people like me are just part of the scenery, like the birds, and barely noticed. It is hard for me to get going some mornings.

Female cardinal (Margo D. Beller)

During this year of coronavirus, these feelings are intensified because of another element - fear. Older people are often shunted aside. Now they can be told it is for their own good. You give them "special hours" to shop because they are "vulnerable" to this virus. Most of us have longstanding conditions where exposure to the virus would put us in the hospital. It is safer staying home. Those of us with jobs can be "attached" to the world without being in it. But many seniors don't have that.

With the cold comes deprivation. It would be harder for the birds to survive without help from people like me putting out the feeders. Many people nowadays do not have that safety net. Unlike many of the birds, many of us won't be with our family groups this winter.

Sitting and watching the birds, the sun peeks through the clouds. I can see its arc is now short enough that the sun rises just past my neighbor's roof. Were it not cloudy I'd have the sun full on my face for a longer time until it rose above the porch window. Still, I close my eyes and time seems to stand still.

But time does not stand still. When the clouds move back in I can see a black cat in my backyard neighbor's yard, heading away from mine. The birds were not perturbed - I have frequently found this well-kept house cat curled up in the sun on my flood wall as the birds eat - but the squirrels rush up the trees and start their alarmed barking. This is when there is a sudden frenzy of birds at the feeder, eating as if there is no tomorrow.  

Cooper's hawk, a common backyard predator. Not today.
(Margo D. Beller)

I don't know what goes through a bird's brain. I can make some guesses. I can guess the suet is being ignored because it is not that cold (the porch temperature rose at least 5 degrees during the time I was out) and it is more important to cache seeds for later, when other food might not be available. I can guess the birds "understand" the sounds of an alarmed squirrel mean danger and eat so they can have the fat in them to take off quickly and fly far if need be.

But when the squirrels and birds calm down, I find myself agitated. I am not free as a bird.

So I leave the porch before the dogs, leaf blowers and other disturbances start for my warm kitchen to tend to the laundry, consider my other chores and wait for MH to wake and come downstairs. Like the birds, he will be fed.

I look at the clock and see I was outside for over an hour. Time I'll never get back.  

It is too easy for people like me to feel depressed, shut in, fearful and forgotten. The birds don't have these "advanced" human feelings, thank goodness. Sitting on my cold porch and watching them on a Sunday morning helps me forget mine.

A Creature of Light

Autumn is a time of long shadows.
(Margo D. Beller)

This year, we turned back the clock before going to sleep on Halloween night, a night where the moon was full for the second time in a month (a blue moon), three planets were easily seen (Jupiter, Saturn, Mars) and one could be seen with binoculars (Uranus). 

With the start of November 2020 we are on standard time. We get an extra hour to use. Many might not want more time in a terrible year of natural and man-made disasters. I know a few hardworking people who likely used the time for well-deserved sleep. I thought I would be doing the same after a lot of activity the day before. Instead, I used this gift of time to sit on the enclosed porch, watching the feeder birds and listening to the silence at first light.

I feel the lack of that extra sleep. Halloween started with temperatures in the upper 20s, our first hard frost of the year. As it happened, I had errands to run. In my travels I saw roofs, shrubs and lawns white with the frost. At home, as expected, the sub-freezing cold put an end to the coleus plants and the dahlias I had in pots in the front yard and dulled the foliage of the cannas. I also discovered at least one deer had, yet again, found a weakness in the deer netting and had gotten a head in to chew on what plants it could grab. 

So I spent much of the day lugging pots from outside to inside and repairing deer netting after I cut back enough of the plants in the front of this particular area to make it harder on the deer should they try again.

Dahlia tubers, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

The cannas were moved to their winter home - the garage - and stored in a dark area once I cut off the foliage. The dahlias were moved to the enclosed porch where the plants were cut back and the tubers dug out of the pot so they could dry before being stored. The dead coleus plants were pulled, the pot moved to the porch and the four cuttings I had rooted were planted. The pot is now in the sunny front room until it is warm enough to go outside again next year. All the cut plant matter went into the compost pile.

By the time I finished all that and even some raking I was very sore and tired. Why push myself to finish that very day? Several reasons. Halloween was the first bright, sunny day in a long time and, while still cold, I was happy to be working in the sun. Also, rain was expected Sunday (it is raining now, as I write).

And it will be dark at 5 p.m., the down side of getting that extra light in the morning.

That is why I rose at 5:45 a.m. I can be exhausted, I can go to bed late but when light starts to creep into my room, I wake up. Just yesterday I would've seen this light at 6:45 a.m., and I am still adjusting to it being an hour earlier. But it was silent at 5:45 a.m. standard time, too early for many to walk or jog with or without dogs on a Sunday morning.

Female purple finch (Margo D. Beller)

The feeders went out at first light and were immediately visited by black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice and a visitor from the north, the purple finch. Unlike the more common house finch, these have a distinctive "eyebrow" - white for the brownish female, pinkish for the male. The purple finch isn't really all that purple, more like raspberry (which is how Roger Tory Peterson describes it in his field guide). 

These finches are irregular visitors, once a lot more common until the house finches started pushing them out of many areas, such as my part of suburbia. Maybe because they don't show up at my feeders as often, the other small birds, even the pugnacious white-breasted nuthatch, leaves them alone. Only when a large bird such as a jay comes at it will the purple finch move. It is a bit bigger and chunkier than the house finch and it has taken me many years to be able to know one when I see it. 

Autumn scene, Westbrook Preserve
West Milford, NJ, October 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

This year there have been many reports of other irregular visitors from the north - pine siskins (I had three the other week) and evening grosbeaks. The grosbeaks, like all the finches (house, purple, goldfinch and their larger cousin the cardinals), will sit and eat until all the seed is gone unless something forces them to leave. Now that the southbound autumn migration is over, for the most part, finding a bird that considers my part of the country warm enough to stay for the winter is thrilling.

The fact 2020 is looking like an "irruption" year should not have surprised me in this year of the coronavirus pandemic at a time when New England has already been hit with heavy snowfall, when we are learning the Greek alphabet thanks to a record number of named storms, when much of the west has seen a record number of wildfires. These birds are looking for food, just like the warblers and others that passed through New Jersey on their way south for the winter. Just as my apple tree produced fewer fruits and the locust tree produced fewer seed pods, the cone seed crop in Canada was poor this year. It has been that type of year.

Luckily for me, sitting in my coat with my steaming cup of coffee at first light, birds don't have to worry about travel restrictions.