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While I was growing up, I ate breakfast with the chickadees. Usually nuthatches joined us as well, and sometimes a downy woodpecker or a brilliant cardinal. My favorites were the nuthatches making their silly, backward way up and down the tree trunks. Self-absorbed as children often are, I doubt I would have paid them much attention or known one from another if it hadn’t been for my father.
His first action every morning, after putting on the coffee and lighting a cigarette, was to check the feeders. He had a tray feeder and a tube feeder and usually a block of suet in a cage. Once he got those set, then it was on to the business of making breakfast, almost always hot, and the classic bag lunch. He wasn’t much of a talker in the early hours, but he always pointed out a new arrival at the feeders as we ate our oatmeal. He kept a pair of binoculars next to his chair at the window for ease of identification; he still does. Then in summer, like us, he took summer vacation (from the feeders in his case) and moved his chair outside to watch the birds forage for wild food.
In those days his constant companion was the Birds of North America. He didn’t mark it up or make life lists, but he lovingly referred any question to his well-thumbed, broken-backed edition. A few years ago he upgraded to Sibley’s, and he, a normally taciturn fellow, can go on for quite a time about the genius of the man who assembled so much information about so many birds in one place. He has always talked more easily with his eyes on the sky than on the face of the person in front of him; perhaps he has a bit of the winged creatures’ skepticism of the importance of two feet on the ground and feels it is safer to show his emotions with winged creatures than with grounded ones.
His interest in all things avian and his encouragement of ours has ensured that my brother and I can identify most “regular” New England birds in the woods or at the shore. Sure, he can do it faster, and we’ve never once beaten him on the calls, but we have learned just the same to appreciate this simple pleasure. I’ve tried in my own way to pass this on to my children. It thrills me to hear them talk about the ‘pipers at the beach or the owl they heard as they were falling asleep or their delight in the discovered name of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, as it thrills my father to hear these reports down the wire.
In retirement the grandparents have gone rural, relocating to a haven for birds and for children to play outdoors without traffic or strangers, and the birds are more present in their lives than ever. Taking a tour of their yard that borders on acres of maple woods and shoulder-high blueberry bushes, we learned that my father’s avian enthusiasms had fixed on bluebirds. He showed the grandkids piece-by-piece how he had built three nest boxes and mounted them on poles. He regaled them with tales of siting the nest boxes, checking them daily for intruders (sparrows like these boxes, too), and finally, joy, witnessing bluebird moving-in day. Anyone might have thought he was talking about his own children when he talked about saving the first nesting pair’s eggs from a scavenging squirrel. Nah, he never talked about us like that, but he sure can spin a nail-biting tale.
The sky-dwelling species about which he never talks fondly is these squirrels; even in their form of flight they do not please him or remind him of his beloveds with wings. To some bird-watchers this is a skirmish with advances and defeats, but to him it has become a full-on war. After trying seemingly every baffle on the market, he has resorted to weapons. I picture him out there with his BB gun, intent on his quarry; he is surely the epitome of the term beady-eyed. The fury that these little gray critters arouse in the devoted birder that is my father is without parallel in either politics or religion, the supposed bugaboos of polite conversation.
I have had to beg him not to squirrel hunt when we visit. The thought of having to console my daughter, who adores all things cute and fuzzy, because her grandfather has dinged one, is something I’d like to avoid. As it is, her rolling eyes show that she doesn’t appreciate his jokes about squirrel stew. Somewhat petulantly and, I think, temporarily, he has agreed to hold off. I can see his mind working. What if the buggers go after the bluebirds again? What other defense do I have when I see my best tube feeder being used a jungle gym? How can I stomach the humiliation when the cheeky b-d winks at me and waves his tail while he polishes off the sunflower seeds, again? He reminds me of a bird himself, his feathers all ruffled, his shoulders hunched up around his ears, whenever he speaks of the latest skirmish. But like Elmer Fudd, he rarely beats his rabbit, or in this case, his squirrel.
Regardless of the multitude of squirrels, he did get his tenant bluebirds, and they return annually now to nest through the summer. When the bluebirds come back to the boxes each spring, home sweet home apparently, all is well in the neighborhood and in my father’s universe. As for the fall and on into the winter, especially if the acorn crop is plentiful, even as greedy as squirrels are, then Dad happily reports the comings and goings of the various finches, woodpeckers, hummingbirds, and, of course, my nuthatches, without having to resort to violence, much.
At home we have our own sightings to report over the phone lines, a goldfinch one day and another, we’re pretty sure, a hairy woodpecker. The fallen seeds from our tube feeder come up a mass of sunflowers, and the finches adore them and adorn them. And so the cycle continues, with the birds as one of our communication lines through the seasons and over the years, keeping us connected across states and across generations.
