A few years ago, I noticed one of my trees was twittering. I figured there were a lot of birds up there, but I couldn’t spot a blessed one. One day the whole treeful went off when my friend stopped by. She’s a genuine birder. “What are those?” I asked her.
“Lesser goldfinches,” she snapped off, without even looking.
Well then. I knew about goldfinches, but had no idea they had a caste system. It seemed awfully judgy. What was lesser about these, and who decides? I squinted up a little harder.
Why We Wrote This
Over the years, our essayist went on a deep dive, plugging in to the seasons, diets, calls, and love lives of the birds in her backyard. Her unexpected discovery? Sometimes happiness lives right under your nose, if you know where to look.
“Vaux’s swift!” my friend added, apropos of nothing. “First of the year!” She was pointing straight up. There was nothing up there. Just sky, with the tiniest imaginable dots popping around. Vaux’s swifts, I read later, barely clear 4 inches in length, and these were flying pretty close to the edge of space. I could hear them, though. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Tsk, tsk, tsk. It was the sound of the world’s smallest librarians, scolding.
It all confirmed my suspicion that birders are savants. Clearly they have come by their freakish knowledge innately, the same way birds know when to migrate and where. There’s no other explanation for it. Still, I was moved to start paying attention to my birds – at least the ones in my yard.
Because it’s never too late to get to know your neighbors. And because paying attention is the first step on the road to joy.
Before long, the patternless twittering in the tree resolved into something familiar, even recognizable. Sometimes the birds twittered and finished with an upward intonation, and sometimes they trailed off downward. All together, it crystallized into a conversation – bird gossip, basically. Questions asked, answers given. Really? Really.
And when I finally got a good look at these lesser (no offense) goldfinches, I could see they were smaller and not as bright as regular goldfinches – not to impugn their intelligence. More importantly, they were not anonymous little brown jobs. They had color and little hats and a certain understated style.
Two weeks prior, I’d never heard of lesser goldfinches. Now, I discovered they outnumbered every other bird in my yard. And I could recognize them by sight and sound.
That’s one. There are 546 other bird species in my state.
Undaunted, I made a casual study of the other locals. I set out a buffet and arranged for housing. I observed and read up. Within a few years, I could be heard to note that the nuthatches were running late this season, or that the chickadees renewed their lease on the south nesting box. The crows made the usual mess in the birdbath.
That pitiful monotonous bleating in April wasn’t a baby bird after all, I learned, but a full-grown female crow making baby talk to entice her mate, who fell for it every time. Juncos were on a schedule. Lots of my new friends were in full feather molt by midsummer and had really let themselves go, which only made me love them more. Pulling a look together has never been my strong suit, either.
And they had love lives. Oh yes: They snuggled; they rubbed bills; they whispered sweet nothings. They brought each other gifts. Grubs, mostly, but hey, whatever works.
I grew to recognize the explosive chirp of the male Anna’s hummingbird coming out of his courtship dive, and to locate his intended, perched impassively on a nearby branch. It’s a heck of an aerobatic feat he pulls off, just to score for a few fine seconds, the only time those birds will ever get along all year. But they know what they’re doing. I can see that now.
Now I’m a part of this community, one that had thrived without my notice. I have plugged myself into the rhythm of the seasons, that slow roll, our planetary heartbeat. I have everyone’s itineraries in my mental calendar. I know who will show up for Thanksgiving. I know a little more about what my new friends need and what I might help with. And as my own life hits its inevitable bumps and potholes, I know they can help me, too.
I own the deed, but my new friends don’t care about property lines. I’m just one of the gang, no different, no smarter. But I might be a little smarter than I was.
One day while I was chatting with a neighbor, something made me look up to see dots sprinkled across the sky. “Vaux’s swifts,” I volunteered, to her blank stare. “They’re the ones making that cheeping sound and zipping around like pinballs. They’re catching bugs. They fly all day because they can’t perch, and can only rest by hanging themselves up in a chimney at night by their toenails.”
“Really?” she asked.
Really.
