The fellowship of feathered friends

Whoa, I blinked and six weeks went by! I had the visit of my mother, then that of my in-laws, and Chloe's preschool let out for the summer and I've been submerged ever since. Sorry!

A couple of months ago, I took the leap and set up a bird feeding station in the back yard. For two years, I'd been asking for contributions to this endeavor for my birthday and Xmas, but to no avail, and with Spring coming along, I went ahead and spoiled myself. It took very little time to start attracting some wildlife. My bird customers mostly count cardinals (cautious types who come in mr/mrs pairs, land 10 feet shy of the feeder before coming in, ladies first) housefinches (who come in chatty groups) mourning doves (who land heavily and trot around the trays for hours on end, sometimes not even eating, such pigs) and Carolina wrens (who seem to stay for a split second at a time, challenging themselves to eat while balancing on the very tips of the perches). Then, on occasion, I've been graced by the flash of indigo buntings, bluebirds, towhees, cedar waxwings, and goldfinches.

I have no temperament for birdwatching. For one thing, I find keeping human names straight hard enough (and sophomore taxonomy cured me of any desire to classify and identify). But I've been surprised at how often I glance over to see who's visiting, clutching our little spotting scope and bird book. They provide a lovely anchor to the wider world. Little flashes of movement out of the corner of my eye calls me away from the endless busy-ness of the household and the girls.

I recall reading about a historian who wrote her doctoral thesis on women pioneers of the prairie. If I recall correctly, she was turned on to the subject after finding an ancestor's memory box, and found a dead canary in there. Then, finding someone else's box with another canary, she found out that it was something of a tradition for women to keep canaries for company. These women lived in sod houses on such open prairie that there were no trees in sight, and hence, few songbirds. They lived in deep isolation and, indeed, silence. Through the day, men would be gone to work and leave the women so alone that the canaries were their antidotes to loneliness, soundlessness, perhaps even insanity.