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.

Dear President Biden:

Hello. Congratulations on your win. I hope you can achieve the unity you mentioned in your inaugural address. As you said, you have many crises on your plate, starting with the coronavirus and its devastating effect on the U.S. economy.

Normally I don't write letters to politicians. I am a bird watcher. But in the waning days of the Trump Administration, the outgoing president did more than pardon his cronies and others. He issued executive orders rolling back some of our long-held environmental regulations.

Mature bald eagle, threatened symbol of our land. (RE Berg-Andersson)

So now that you have issued your own executive order to get us back into the Paris climate accords, here are other Trump orders you should rescind as soon as possible.

An EPA rule that will allow major sources of hazardous air pollutants to reclassify themselves as less regulated "area sources" under the Clean Air Act, abandoning the "once-in, always-in" policy that had been in place for 25 years.

An EPA rule on greenhouse gas emission standards for airplanes that fails to adequately mitigate public health and environmental harms from such emissions, including the environmental justice impacts on residents living near airports, which disproportionately include disadvantaged minority and low-income communities.

An EPA rule maintaining the national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone at a level that fails to protect public health and welfare based on the existing scientific evidence.

An EPA rule that will skew how the agency weighs the costs and benefits of rules under the Clean Air Act by excluding important public health benefits from the analysis while inflating the costs. In particular, the rule will cause future EPA rules to undercount the harmful effects of carbon emissions that lead to climate change and distort the value of "co-benefits," the often-substantial benefits of rules that addresses more than one pollutant.

An EPA rule weakening the Clean Air Act's new source review program for major modifications to existing major stationary sources of emissions. The rule will subject New Jersey residents to lower air quality and will make it more difficult for downwind States like New Jersey to attain or maintain federal air quality standards.

An EPA rule that unlawfully and arbitrarily limits the scientific evidence that the agency can consider when adopting rules and standards to protect human health and the environment.

A U.S. Department of Energy rule that will weaken federal energy efficiency standards for consumer appliances and industrial equipment by making it easier for manufacturers to obtain waivers from product testing requirements.

Rules from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service that will make it harder to protect endangered and threatened species by narrowly defining critical "habitat" and establishing a skewed process for excluding areas from critical habitat designations.

A rule from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that rolls back protections for migratory birds. 

These last two are the ones that most alarm me. The narrow definition of "habitat" has allowed Trump to open forests in the northwest U.S. to logging, threatening the northern spotted owl. Trump's order removing protections for migratory birds threatens, among others, the bald eagle, the symbol of this land. For this reason, 12 states filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging this Trump orders violates the Endangered Species Act.

Martha, the last of the passenger pigeons (Smithsonian)

There are some people who believe what it says in the Bible, that man was given dominion over the animals, and use that as license to do what they want, including hunting some birds to extinction. Think of the birds no longer around - the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet - except in the paintings of John Jay Audubon. According to the environmental organization that took his name, over 300 birds are on the brink of extinction, as of 2019, before Trump's executive orders. This is all because of climate change, one of your many concerns. But without action, that number will surely rise.

When the coronavirus is a distant memory and people can walk outdoors unafraid and unmasked, I don't want to live in a world when I can no longer see warblers, herons, hawks or owls. Do you?

Please act now.

Thank you. 

The Smallest Survivor

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. 

--Anne Bradstreet

I'm thinking about a gold-crowned kinglet this winter morning. 

It is at 8 a.m. the rising sun now comes out from behind my neighbor's house and hits me as I sit on my enclosed porch. Little by little the sun's arc has been lengthening as it rises higher in the sky. At this point I can only sit outside on the weekend for the 35 minutes or so I am in full sun at this point of the year because I need time to have breakfast and then ready for work. (In the pre-coronavirus days I would be on a train during this time.) 

The thermometer shows me it is 20 degrees F on the enclosed but unheated porch and my phone showed me it is 19 degrees outside, windchill of 9. That's why I'm thinking about the kinglet.

I am wearing a number of layers from head to toe, including a long down coat with hood. A gold-crowned kinglet, a tiny bird (about the weight of a couple of pennies) with bold markings on its face and wings and a yellow patch on its head (the male has an orange stripe on that yellow patch), does not have that luxury. The one I saw while taking a recent hike in the woods, trying to stay out of a fierce, cold wind, was flitting around quickly in a low shrub, looking for food. 

Gold-crowned kinglet, Pennsylvania, December 2013
(Margo D. Beller)

Usually I see this tiny bird high in a conifer, its preferred habitat, once I'm alerted to its presence by its buzzy tse-tse-tse call. They breed in conifer forests but when I see them it is during migration periods, mainly in autumn. But this bird seems to hang around in areas like mine in winter, as long as it can find food.

According to the people at the Cornell Ornithology Lab, a gold-crowned kinglet can survive in temperatures of -40 degrees F at night. That's 40 degrees below zero. How do they survive?

The scientist Bernd Heinrich wanted to know that, too. The gold-crowned kinglet (as opposed to its cousin, the ruby-crowned kinglet, which does not hang around here in winter) is among the creatures he studied in his book "Winter World" about survival in the harshest conditions. Heinrich, who is professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, owns a lot of property in Maine, which he has traveled for the observations in his many books. He found these kinglets, which normally eat insects, will eat what they can find in winter including spiders, insect eggs and moth caterpillars. They need to maintain an internal temperature of 110 degrees F, Heinrich found.

The gold-crowned will use old squirrel or bird nests and huddle together to stay warm, he found after following several to their roost one December twilight. Like me in my coat, sleeping kinglets fluff up their feathers to make an inch-thick, downy blanket. These feathers make up 10% of a kinglet's body weight. 

Heinrich also found that without this down layer, a naked kinglet would cool rapidly, which would be fatal. He caught one bird and weighed the wing and tail feathers, which are primarily used for flying, and compared them to the weight of the body feathers, which are primarily used for insulation. Kinglets have four times more feather mass committed to insulation than to flying, he learned.

Still, as I sit in the sun's warmth, warmly dressed in my down layer and holding a hot cup of coffee, I can't help but think of that little bird having to stay in perpetual motion on such a wicked cold day so it eat and thus survive. It is a cold, cruel world out there. I hope it survives.

. 

Bird brains

Redbelly in an awkward position. (Margo D. Beller)

Two days after the first nor'easter of the 2020 winter season, I was bundled against the 18 degree (F) cold (14 outside) as I sat on my enclosed porch, waiting for the birds to show up at the three seed and one suet feeders I had put out the morning before as the snow was winding down. With 10 inches of snow on the ground I had left the feeders out overnight, figuring the bears were finally taking a winter nap.

The first birds to arrive were two chickadees. One would fly to the feeder that has a cage surrounding the seed tube. The other would fly over and the first one would fly away until the second fed and left. Obviously, a pecking order at work, but how do they know which is the leader?

A female cardinal came to the open, house-shaped feeder but when a male flew to the other side of the feeder, she flew to a nearby bush. Usually cardinal pairs don't act this way - they share the feeder - but when a second male cardinal flew in and the first one chased him off I wondered which one, if either, was the female's mate.

A white-breasted nuthatch as a house finch waits for it
to fly off. (Margo D. Beller)

Later, a male redbellied woodpecker came to the house feeder. He took a seed, flew to a tree to crack it open to eat, then came back. He completely ignored the suet feeder hanging on the other arm of the pole. After a couple of passes he realized there was a long, perchless feeder encased in "squirrel-proof" metal (squirrels might not get in but I have seen them hang on, if they can jump over the baffle). He flew over, grabbed the metal and was in a more natural position to get seed without having to twist himself around, as he did at the house feeder.

Meanwhile, a smaller male downy woodpecker was enjoying the suet. A female downy (the females don't have the males' red spot on the back of the head), which I had seen on the suet when it was hung on the other feeder pole before the storm, also used the long feeder rather than look for the suet. Was she put off by the male or did she not see the suet?

Finally, a male white-breasted nuthatch came to the house feeder at the same time as a female (whose head has a gray crown rather than a black one). She stayed on the feeder roof and watched the male, waiting for him to leave. Didn't she see the other side was open for her?

I mention all this because at several points I wondered what these birds could be thinking. 

Downy at suet feeder. Woodpeckers don't mind
being upside-down. (Margo D. Beller)

We use the term "bird-brained" to connote a human who is none too smart. But birds have proportionally large brains compared to their overall body and head sizes. With those brains they can remember where they have cached food, where they can find more food (such as my feeders) and how to adapt to situations. 

The first time I used my long feeder, before I realized I needed a pole and a baffle to keep out the squirrels, I hung it in the pear tree in front of my screened porch. I noticed at several points that winter some of the juncos, a black and white relative of the sparrow family, would grab hold of the metal and get a seed. Without a perch, this was not a natural position for a sparrow. But a few of these had figured out they could get the food without competition from the others foraging on the ground. 

Blue jay, like its corvid relatives, is among the 
smartest birds. (Margo D. Beller)

Birds are also smart enough to know how to find the proper roost hole in winter and the materials to create nests in summer. Each Spring robins poke around my ornamental grass garden to take the cut grass I haven't picked up. Other birds have gone into the compost pile if there is suitable material for a nest. Somehow they have learned how to do this from their parents. And, of course, the birds, including the previous year's nestlings, somehow remember how to get to their wintering grounds every Autumn and how to return to their breeding grounds every Spring.

Many have written about the intelligence of certain birds, or try to analyze why they do what they do. Especially now, during the time of coronavirus when people desperate to be out of the house are suddenly discovering the birds around them, this is a popular field.

Among the most intelligent of the birds are the corvids, including ravens, crows, jays and magpies. Corvids are among those that know how to use tools. They have an assortment of vocal sounds that mean different things, a type of language. Naturalist Bernd Heinrich was so fascinated by ravens and crows he wrote a number of books about them.

In researching this blog post I learned scientists turned to grackles to learn how often a bird blinks in flight. It never occurred to me a bird could blink, but I am not surprised grackles were studied. Grackles know how to forage, as I know when there is an invasion of 100 of them in my yard and my neighbors' several times a year. Grackles, like other blackbirds including orioles, are very intelligent. Grackles have learned that after mating season is over there is safety in numbers and more eyes mean a better chance of finding food.  

So are birds smart or silly when they fight over one side of my feeder while the other side has nothing in it, or when they ignore a feeder that might provide them an easier way to eat? My human brain isn't smart enough to provide an answer.

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.