I like to tend to my small birds. Today I see their birdbath is nearly empty of water. I make a mental note to add a pitcher of water as soon as I finish picking up around the kitchen. Meanwhile, steam continues rising from the bath on this bitterly cold morning.
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The current temperature is six below zero, but with the wind chill the air feels even colder against any exposed skin. The ground is covered with hard-packed snow. The snow crunches underfoot while I examine the bird feeders. After so many gloomy days, I can’t help but feel lifted because today’s sky is powder blue and cloudless. It is too cold even for cloud formation, I suspect.
Except for the cold, a beautiful morning indeed. The sun is welcome, but its reflection off the snow is so intense I squint and scurry to seek out any convenient shadow. Despite the illusion of warmth, and despite being heavily clothed in wool or down from head-to-toe, I am mindful to complete my task and avoid overexposure to such brutal cold.
The whole time my small birds stay busy hitting the feeders, unless I happen to be standing too nearby. Other small birds scatter as I approach the heated birdbath that sits on a railing on the back porch. Back inside my home, I will watch them light and gather around this miniature “schvitz.” I’m familiar with their routine. One by one they jump into the pool. I smile as one starts splashing. It’s just my opinion, but I think a small bird is at least as fastidious as a cat. On some days there will be so many small birds crowded into the “schvitz” that the late arrivals are forced to line up on the railing, awaiting their opportunity.
Invariably, some noise, or sight, or vibration will spook them. They take wing and scatter like a single organism. This evasion behavior is hard wired but clearly necessary for their survival because my birds are small, fragile, and appear mainly to consist of feathers and thin bones. Yet, they are persistent, and quickly regroup at the bath to resume their water frolics as soon as they perceive that I no longer pose any immediate threat. This pattern gets repeated at irregular intervals throughout the day, especially sunny days.
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Lee and I greatly enjoyed sitting on the front porch at Deer Tick Manor to watch the birds. The occasion might be breakfast, a cup of piping hot coffee held in both hands, quietly listening to the birds exchanging their songs, and chirps and assorted calls, while the warming, early morning sun gradually climbed into full view from behind the woods. Whether the occasion consisted of a mid-day snack of fresh fruit and nuts that Lee would peck at like a tiny bird, or sipping icy cocktails in the lengthening shadows of a late afternoon, we always kept binoculars close at hand.
And over the years, Deer Tick provided us with several amazing avian experiences. I’ll never forget hearing the rising clamor of the birds, distant and deep in the woods at first, presaging an explosion of what seemed to me to be hundreds, if not thousands, of passing birds, emerging from the woods into full view. For a couple of hours, they fill the sky, occupy every tree, and gather in large clusters on the ground to feast on unseen prey. To this day, I have no clue what type of birds they were, or why so many birds were traveling together, or where they ultimately were headed. Moreover, when it came time for them to depart, these birds evaporated so quickly it felt as if we might have imagined the whole thing.
One year, our annual ritual of battening down and closing Deer Tick for the winter just completed, we started paying more attention to the small birds in our own backyard. The local bird population consists of lots of drab sparrows, two-tone chickadees, a few lingering robins, and, if I’m lucky, a small woodpecker or two. Opportunistic city pigeons randomly stop by. I’ll see them sitting on top of the garage, looking down for something edible. One time, I happened to be looking out the window when a large hawk, not common around here, swooped down from a tree and sneak attacked an unfortunate pigeon, which exploded in a cloud of feathers.
Putting aside these pigeons, my permanent resident male cardinal seems large next to my small birds. Additionally, he stands out for his bright red color, especially against the snow.
He has his mate for life. Over the years I have been privileged to watch them raise their fledglings and juveniles. A small tree adjacent to my back porch has been a launching pad for several generations of young cardinals.
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Like people, birds are warm blooded. The base temperature of the small birds is higher than mine. Plus, they have much higher metabolic rates and burn more energy to stay warm than we do. For example, no matter how frigid the outdoor air temperature happens to be, a black-capped chickadee, which weighs less than one ounce, must maintain a body temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. To do so, it needs daily to consume more than 35 percent of its body weight!
My small birds battle the cold and winter elements by shivering for warmth. They preen to keep their feathers fluffed, trapping air around their bodies. They preen to spread the body oil they secrete from a gland near the base of their tails, which helps to weatherproof their feathers, maintaining a water-resistant top layer and a warmer inner layer.
Just as people may cuddle for warmth, so, too, my small birds. They crowd together and share body warmth.
I have read birds living in the Arctic will utilize a technique known as “snow tunneling” to shelter from the cold. Yesterday, a tiny sparrow landed on top of the snow covering a portion of my back porch. I watched as it burrowed down into the snow and disappeared. There is a crawl space for storage beneath the porch that I know some birds use for shelter. Each year, as winter approaches, I will see birds migrating to this shelter from the evergreen bush at the front of my property they seem to prefer during warmer months, when the climate is more temperate and hospitable. The crawl space is well located, too, close to trees, shrubs, feeders and, of course, the “schvitz.” My guess is that this is where my tiny sparrow disappeared yesterday.
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Robyn likes the birds, too, for which I am very glad. It is something we have in common that we can build upon in time. She recently set up a suet feeder for them in her yard but then told that me she had to move it because it was under attack from squirrels. I laughed.
Lee had engaged in endless combat against the gray squirrels. There was not a single squirrel-proof feeder on the market these rascals could not crack. And whenever she saw one hanging upside down on a feeder, she would dash outside, waving both arms and yelling to scare it off, only to see it return to the scene of the crime before she could even manage to come indoors. They would go back and forth in this manner until the squirrel inevitably wore her down, defeated, but only until the next day.
Once, on her birthday, I surprised Lee with a lovely hardwood slingshot, monogrammed with her initials, and a small bag of walnuts for ammunition. Seeing Lee bent over with laughter left me feeling warm and glad. Watching her laugh so heartily, I couldn’t help but smile myself. The thing really worked, too, but since a lucky shot easily could have killed even a large squirrel, Lee never used it.
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If my resident male cardinal’s life mate dies, would he try to find another? I have no idea but wouldn’t be surprised if he did. The resilience and strength that my small birds display daily under these toughest of conditions is inspiring. There is much that we can learn from my small birds, I think.