Sights and Sounds from the Porch

 

I have bluebirds in my birdhouse this year.  It has always been hit or miss with the bluebirds, but I was sitting on the porch last week and thought I saw one sitting on the roof of the house.  A few days later, I did see one going inside the door.  Since then, I’ve seen them several times.  This morning,  I watched one of the adults go inside and heard, for the first time, baby birds clamoring for their share of breakfast.

There is also some kind of nest just outside the window of my writing corner.  I’m not sure what kind of bird it is, but it seems to be a very active set of would-be parents. I frequently witness a lot of hustle and bustle in the depths of the bush.  Then of course, there are the mockingbirds, who scold and fret from daylight to dark in the crab-apple tree just a short distance from the porch swing.  The other day, I noticed two swallows doing an aerial dance around the porch.  So much joy contained in a body not even as big as my fist.

I feed the birds in the winter and early spring, keeping several types of feeders stocked with sunflower seed and suet cakes.  I don’t keep a count or a list of different birds, like some people do.  That would make it seem too much like work for me and might put too much pressure on the birds to keep up.  I do always take note of the woodpeckers and am happy to see the sweet little chickadees and finches and nuthatches.  I like the cardinals, although I don’t necessarily share the belief some people have that they are spirits of departed loved ones.  If they are, they are cranky spirits who delight in fighting other spirits for their spot at the feeder or on the tree branches. 

The aggression of the cardinals pales in comparison to that of the hummingbirds, however.  I just put the feeder out this week and four new arrivals appeared.  They are beautiful and I love to watch them hover and feed and zip away.  Jewels in the Garden was the title of one book I saw about hummers and it fits if you only look at appearance.  X Wing Fighters in the Garden would be a better description, if you take behavior into account.  Apparently, they are very territorial.  From my observations, I think they are sociopaths.  They don’t care that there are two feeders with several stations.  Why do the makers of feeders even bother to put more than one hole? No self-respecting hummer will allow another hummer to share.  And if you get in the line of battle, it’s too bad.  Dodging incoming birds disrupts the peace of the front porch when they visit the feeders.  I had to move one feeder further from the porch swing to avoid incoming bombers.  And when the feeder is empty, I catch a malevolent glare from their tiny eyes until I fetch more sugar water.  If they ever managed to unify, it would be The Birds all over again.  They won’t because they would be too busy fighting each other, at least until the sugar water ran out. 

There are owls in the holler beside my house, unseen but audible every evening and night.  And I occasionally hear a whippoorwill down there in late afternoon.  I thought all the bobwhites had disappeared from these parts, but I was happy to hear one call last summer from the pasture south of the garden.  I was even happier to hear an answer from the front pasture.  I hope they found each other and lived happily ever after.  I’m anxious to see if there are more this summer.  These bird calls are a welcome accompaniment to the creak of the porch swing and the snores of the dogs asleep at my feet.  Not to mention the cheerful songs that wake me up every morning.

Since I don’t have to worry about chickens, I enjoy watching the lazy flight of the hawks, and an eagle is still a rare enough sight out here to bring a skip to my heartbeat.  John Denver sang that he’d be a poor man if he never saw an eagle fly, and I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to see one fly across the pasture to the river where they now build their nests.

The most interesting bird related event was a couple of Sundays ago when a very large flock of cedar waxwings stopped by to practice their tap dance routine on my back porch roof.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  I had started to the barn that morning and when I went out to the porch, I heard what I first took to be hail on the roof.  Since the sun was shining and it was a shirt sleeve day, I eliminated that possibility almost immediately.  But there was a definite tap, tap, tap of what seemed to be dozens of tiny feet on the tin roof. 

The birds – there must have been dozens – then swooped down into the back yard, inspecting the top of the old cistern and the last season’s flowerpots sitting there.  They did a complicated air ballet for a couple of minutes and returned to dance practice on the roof.  I’ve heard people talk about flocks of cedar waxwings appearing in the spring, but this was, I think, the first time I have ever seen even a pair at my place.  My guess is that they were on their way to a dance competition and had stopped by for a last-minute rehearsal.  When they had finished the second set, they flew to a nearby tree, then departed.  It was such a short visit, I almost felt I had imagined it.  I hope they had a prize-winning performance, wherever they were headed.  It sounded good to me.