My Favorite Birds

I felt tears welling as I watched the last of my little hummingbirds drinking nectar from their feeder they’d frequented all summer. I knew a couple of weeks ago that the stragglers were stopping by on their way south, but there was one little hummer that would always come and thank me for everything.

That little hummer needed me, and I needed her. She would drink, then hover over the coffee table right near my knee, looking me square in the face, not seeming to be as curious as she seemed to be thankful. I’d watch in complete amazement, studying each tiny part, wondering about what all she would see on her journey ahead, and where she would spend Christmas. In a world where so much is taken for granted, it brings great hope and purpose to feel the gratitude of a tiny green hummingbird that takes the time to acknowledge that it knows you care about it.

I got attached to my summer birds.

There is nothing as lovely as the song of the Wood Thrush, and nothing as humorous as the Eastern Wood Pewee calling its own name as if to repeatedly announce its presence like a high school student not wanting to be marked for skipping class. The Eastern Phoebe has several calls, but the one that makes me laugh is the hiccup that sounds a bit like she’s been out drinking all night and can’t fly quite straight. And then there’s the White-Breasted Nuthatch, who sounds like an evil circus clown laughing at the state of the world.

We have three resident Great Horned Owls who sit on different sides of the farm, as I imagine them having coffee and sharing the secrets of the night before dozing off to sleep the day away. They call back and forth right before dawn, and each has a different voice even though they have the same call. For a few weeks, they’d swoop in at dusk and put on a little show for us. We knew their favorite branches, and we witnessed the silent flight made possible by their fuzzy feathers.

For now, the warbler colony has my attention, and they’ll be wintering right here with us on the Funny Farm. We almost took down our abandoned chicken coop when the hawk killed off our remaining birds, but we left it up and now it is filled with shrubs and weeds. I had no idea until a long observation last week that it is also filled with warblers who have made it home. We have Pine, Palm, Cape May, Tennessee, Yellow-Rumped, Prothonotary, Hooded, and Nashville Warblers that have identified themselves through their calls. I’ve been taking the Zoom lens out to try to get photos of each species, but these are fast little birds that prefer to cloak themselves in the leaves.

This will be what I will do with my final day of fall break – – I’ll spend it selfishly, watching and waiting, noting details about the birds in my own back yard, listening for their voices and watching these tiny warblers flit from branch to branch like little Olympic gymnasts performing on parallel bars. And I’ll wish I had wee gold medals to award each of them for their acrobatic entertainment!