Birds and other sounds
The different things I hear in the garden belong in categories. Number One includes jets bound for XNA or Memphis and then on to Cincinnati. Local pilots from Carroll County Airport occasionally buzz overhead out here. Also included in that group are motorized vehicles on the rural dirt road… most vehicles clatter and FedEx trucks barrel, but not very often.
That means I can hear category Number Two which includes deer, armadillos and squirrels in the woods. They mostly stay away, but any time of day I hear birds all around, and they deserve their own category.
A couple times recently in late afternoon I’ve heard a barred owl in the next woods over asking, “Who cooks for you?” over and over because maybe he’s looking for a cook. It’s barred owl mating time, don’t you know, during Valentine season, but they live here year-round.
There are other birds flitting near the garden which never leave. Carolina chickadees flock with titmice and nuthatches. Mourning doves and cardinals stick around through the cold, and so do downy and red-bellied woodpeckers. Also flying through will be the primeval screeches of pileated woodpeckers.
But right after Valentine season, bird dynamics begin to shift. Almost every year, pine warblers move back in during the last half of February, sometimes earlier. Their underside colors blend upwards from a gray-white into yellow, and then yellow-green which is not necessarily evident without binoculars. They prefer cooler weather during breeding season, and its song is a plaintive trill, the first notice they have returned, which could be any day now.
Eastern phoebes are usually next, and the rafters of my deck is a popular nesting site. They are called phoebes because that is what they say in a sore throat sort of voice. They dart off of a perch to catch something flying by and quickly return to the perch, and they constantly wag their tail feathers when perched. Their nest area can be messy, but they eat bugs and they lived here before I did.
Also, by the end of February, the earliest chipping sparrows show up. They sport a red-brown Mohawk and they are the summertime ground-feeding sparrows just like dark-eyed juncos are in winter. Juncos leave by mid-April and head for their breeding range, from Newfoundland across Canada into Alaska, but dozens of them return to the woods where I live every year. I’m honored.
Next to arrive in about a month will be brown-headed cowbirds, about whom my opinion is conflicted. They are a shiny black with a brown head, and they fly in as a group usually. Word on the street is they lay eggs in the nests of other birds which is contrary to my paternal instinct, so I must temper my bias because we’re all just visitors here. I’ve never worn their feathers. Maybe as a species they are simply bad parents, and their survival depends on a foster parent system. I’m just guessing.
By the end of March, brown creepers and black and white warblers arrive. It’s called a brown creeper because it’s brown and it creeps from the bottom of a tree trunk toward the top. Just scampers up the trunk looking for bugs. It will forage along the bottom of a thick limb. The black and white warbler looks like a white bird that flew through a mist of black– it has streaky black speckles. It also scampers along the underside of limbs, and its song sounds like a rusty hinge (nothing personal).
By April and beyond, everybody returns because it’s warmer. Whippoorwills for the nighttime, hummingbirds and yellow-billed cuckoos during the day, summer tanagers, indigo buntings, a half dozen warblers each with a distinct trill.
Category Number Three has color, curiosity, language and intrigue– a miscellany of travelers north and south with stories to tell.
Category Number Four is silence. Sitting in the garden. Feeling the wisdom and honesty of the moment. Hearing what the lettuce hears.