Odds and Ends, or Beginnings
I stood at the dining room window yesterday morning watching the white-throated sparrows scratching and digging and hopping madly down the boardwalk. They seem to be single minded in their pursuit of food, little fluffs of feathers flitting to and fro. Then one took off, flew across the rose garden and through the fence gap on the far side, an opening of no more than 2 to 2 and a half inches. Just flew right through the fence. He was, at least, a certainly sober sparrow, unless he was a certainly sober wren.
The Carolina wren, you see, was also busy among the bushes and on the feeders yesterday morning. Unlike the sparrows there is never more than one or two wrens around the deck, but there is always at least one. I think of them as clues now, though I can't say that I am getting very far. Still, they are delightful to watch in their flitting from bush to bush to feeder and sometimes onto the deck itself, sitting on tables, pots and jugs. The thing about the Carolina wren is that it seems so economically designed, every part distinct, starting with the white eyebrow streak, the angled tail feathers, and especially the soft, reddish-brown down on the underside of the bird.
One hard winter many years ago we had flocks of purple finches and evening grosbeaks. Mary was putting food on the balcony just out side the sliding glass door in the dining room, where we could stand off to the side and watch. The birds would flock to the seed, and since there were so many of them, and our presence did not seem to spook them, Mary tried sliding the glass door open a bit and putting her hand out filled with seed. Of course at first they flew off but there were so many that they soon came back, and eventually they took the seed from her hand. And from my hand too. We took turns for a bit. We still have some purple finches but we haven't seen evening grosbeaks in a long time. Upon reflection you might say that we had a Saint Francis moment once in our lives.