Essays

Wild On The Prairie: Birds

All about Bird feeding
December 31, 2000

My late mom never fed birds close to the house. “ When a Sharp-shinned Hawk comes, the birds panic, and some die when they hit the windows.” I do like all boys do when their moms aren’t looking, and decided to learn why she said that.

A group that visited the Sibley Nature Center gave me a fifteen-dollar gift certificate. I selected a half dozen squares of “suet” that is not really suet, which will not melt when the temperature is above freezing. I gritted my teeth and joined hordes of bargain hunters in a local mega-store where, after walking half a mile, I finally found bird feeders for sale. For just a few dollars, I purchased quite the palatial feeder, with suet screens at both ends of the grain hopper. Ain’t this country grand!

My mother, Frances Williams, did put hummingbird feeders under the soffit. I hung the big feeder on the eye-hook she had previously hung just 18 inches from the window. Nothing came. Day after day, nothing came. A week, two weeks. Nothing. For a change of pace, I purchased a quail block to stick under the pinyon that had always served as Ma’s feeding post. Nothing much came to it either. So I hung a sunflower tube in the tree. Success!

First they came to the sunflower tube, then the quail block. Soon, a big Roadrunner came to harry the frenzied mob one gorgeous sunny evening. The Sharpie came swooping by every day, and finally began sleeping in the Ceremonial Grove, next to Frances’ memorial island in the pond.

One afternoon, my assistant Brandon Young came to the Arboretum to help move bookcases, refrigerators, beds and other such “way-too-heavy-for-one-man” items. As we took a break and sat messing with his dog, I pointed out a Scrub Jay at the tube feeder.

“What strange behavior -- look how he sneaks in flying as fast as he can, grabs one mouthful, and then high-tails it out, with the same flat, fast blur of flight. Wow!”

Brandon did not see the entire sortie, so I suggested waiting for another pass -- I was still panting and sweating. The bird did not come back, though, until our attention was distracted. I pointed at him as he zipped past the Geometry Bush, and Brandon watched as the raid was accomplished in less than 30 seconds.

“I tell you, that is weird. It is weird. Jays are usually bossy, loud and raucous. The one I saw follow the fox was a skulker, too. Why are they behaving so covertly?”

Brandon did not answer my rhetorical question. He was patting his dog on the head. She had quieted, at last. A young hound with the heart to attack a bear, she suffers considerable separation anxiety in relation to Brandon. We purposefully sat where she was leashed, so we could try to “mellow her out.”

“Have you noticed that different critters take center stage in any one locality? A set of birds and mammals take turns being the focus of everyone in the neighborhood. The Cactus Wren fusses at intruders and other changes and disruptions, and everyone listens. The Curve-billed Thrasher performs a more thorough inspection, that orange eye exacting and particular. All you can hear is his sifting of the leaves, tapping the ground with his beak. Then everything is quiet.”

A Cactus Wren began fussing near the Pomegranate. Male House Finches began feeding at the tube feeder, their reddish heads bright in the afternoon light that filtered through the Afghan Pines. They glistened in the sun, doing a slow dance/fight over the most premier feeding port.

“Twinkling red against dark green, how festive and appropriate!” Brandon has the intelligence and sensitivity of a poet.

“Yeah! Sing it, Brandon, sing it out!” Being young, he is still self-conscious at times. He has not learned to be shameless. Actors make fools of themselves. Actors must, before they learn their craft.

The Scrub Jay came barreling in again. In and out. Zip. Just like that. “Why?” The question gnawed at me.

We looked down at Pete the Prairie Dog, always at Brandon’s side. He had stopped playing in his cage, stopped drumming with his feet, plucking the wires with his teeth, and throwing scraps of paper out. Pete was still. Very still. He listened intently. Not a bird sound anywhere. Not a sound, no. Just the breeze in the pines, a sound quiet and hidden from notice except at certain moments.

After thirty seconds, one of the Canyon Towhees mewed from below the new feeder. I had spilled some of the mixed grains as I filled the hopper. Towhees dance like Cossacks, leaves flying everywhere as they search for tidbits. As this one danced, the leaf-crunching seemed magnified by the corner of the house nearby.

The dog barked, wishing for the return of our attention. Brandon hushed her. The Towhee sat frozen under the raggedy Creeping Mahonia. Coffee grounds, greens, and other unobtrusive kitchen waste now ends up there to enrich the soil, an easy step from the dining table. Once in a while the skunk comes by before our “desert” air completely dessicates the fresh leavings. Deborah and I like him, since the four cats can sniff noses with him and never ever get sprayed. Skunks are so unburdened with concern, “ya’ jest gotta luv ‘em.”

The Towhee launched itself up, and lit on the top of the new feeder. It peered over at its new perch, and must have spotted some of the same seeds it had just been eating. It hopped to the ledge and took a bite, and after another hop, it bent around and pecked at the suet that is not suet.

No other bird found the new feeder until the third snowstorm of the year. The Towhee brought its buddy (probably a sibling, but possibly its mate). Whitecrowned Sparrows found the seeds in the leaves below, and then they, too, tested the new feeder.

“Ooooh, a House Finch!” Deborah put her iron down, placing her morning pressing on hold. She watched as Boy, the big orange cat, placed his paws on the sill and performed the feline predatory whicker, smacking his lips and jerking his tail spasmodically. “What a Pavlovian response, huh?”

We snickered at the cat, which got embarrassed and lost all interest in the bird. There was not much to this third snowstorm. Only ice pellets rested on leaves above the ground, and there was no white skim on the paths at all. Still… three snows in six weeks -- what a winter for us! (The following week brought temperatures in the teens.)

Today, the Scrub Jay crammed itself on the ledge of the new feeder. It hammered at the frozen suet that is not suet. On such bitter days of near-zero wind-chills, the ability of wild animals to survive inclement weather is flabbergasting. I stood sorting mail on the ironing board, my hands fluttering less than three feet from his head.

“Who cares – who says I have to be scared? I am hungry, and I am betting you leave me alone.” He had that resentful, affected hunch that teenagers brandish for effect. I finished sorting Deborah’s mail from mine, and began sorting mine into piles of keepers and trash.

When I next looked up, three female House Finches had replaced the Jay. The feeder is no used consistently, and so far, no bird has killed itself when panicked by a hawk by crashing into the window, as my mother always believed would happen.