It’s not just birds on the trail by the house.
by James Brush
Year: 2009
When you use spider silk to build a nest,
You take an awful risk.
This is what I learned from a hummingbird
Trapped in a spider’s web.
Still alive, the bird fought for his freedom,
The spider watched, waiting,
Shrinking back when I moved to intervene.
I gently pulled the bird
Out of the sticky tangles of the web.
Afraid I might crush him,
My fingers, trembling, pulled the silk away
From tiny, tightbound wings,
Glowing iridescent in the sunlight
When I opened my hand,
He shot into the air, flying swift north,
seeking another web.
—
This is a true story from a few years ago. I’ve written a few other poems about it, but this one is the latest. I’ve been experimenting with writing lines with specific syllable counts and sometimes stumbling into formal meters. Experimenting with rhythm, I guess.
Check out more good stuff at Read Write Poem, where you’ll find a number of folks who wrote a poem a day for the 30 days of April, aka National Poetry Month. I didn’t shoot for that, but I did write more poems this month than usual, many of which are at a gnarled oak or in my journal. And, I revised a lot of older ones.
After the tooth extraction, the painkillers left Joey feeling a little fuzzy.
[saveagrey]
I finally got to see an American Goldfinch in breeding plumage. They’ve been coming around all winter, but they’ve mostly headed north now, leaving before turning yellow. This little straggler made my day on Saturday when he stopped by the nyger bag for a few seeds in between visits by the always yellow Lesser Goldfinches.
Roiling clouds, grey as the mountains,
spill across sky, over the plains.
Farmhouses wrecked by the violence of wind,
mute warning for those still stuck to earth.
A blizzard’s first kiss bends roadside grasses,
travels through tires and axle to my palms
clutching the wheel. I don’t remember cars
or birds. Every minute the colors bleed
toward an iron uniformity.
I forget to believe in gravity.
—
I’ve been working on a series of road poems lately. Some new stuff and some old ones I’ve been revising. Read Write Poem’s prompt for the day was Road Trip so here’s a road poem.
It comes from a trip I took up to Colorado on ’94. One day, I decided to drive up toward Cheyenne because I’d never been to Wyoming. There was a blizzard coming in and, well, that led to this poem.
“Discrimitive insight”
(viveka)
is the enemy of avidyā
and therefore the chief instrument
to disentangle us from
the force
of the gunas.
It cuts through tamas
and rajas
like a knife, opening the way
to realization
that the core of our identity
is separated
by
a
wide
gulf
from the continuous ebb
and
flow
of the tendencies that capture
the attention
of the usual individual
and are everywhere
regarded as pertaining to the
Self.
—
I have no idea what this is about. I tried a Read Write Poem prompt called Thirft Store, where you arrange found lines into a poem.
The basic strategy is to find a passage of prose, keep it exactly like you find it, but change the line breaks strategically to call emphasis to the aspects of the passage you find poetic.
I decided to get a book from my library that I haven’t read (yet) open it to a random page and grab the first two sentences my eyes fell on. This is from page 304 of Philosophies of India by Heinrich Zimmer.
The end result is more of an exercise in line breaking than an actual poem, but it’s a useful exercise, I think, since it allows me to experiment with creating the look of a piece with total objectivity rather than having to battle preconceived notions when adjusting the line breaks in one of my own poems.
So, here it is, for what it’s worth.
Project FeederWatch ended last weekend. For those just tuning in, PFW is a citizen science project run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The idea is that you commit to keeping a record of all the birds that visit your feeders, birdbaths, birdhouses, and landscape features from November to April. In addition to being a part of something that helps scientists learn about and help birds, participants have the opportunity to learn a surprising amount about what goes on right outside their doors.
This is a summary of some interesting things I learned.
Observations about Specific Birds:
Wrens:
We get both Carolina and Bewick’s Wrens at our house. They both like suet and mealworms, but the Carolina Wrens will also take seeds from the cake feeders. Carolina Wrens also seem to be more willing to poke around the ground in the flowerbed, while Bewick’s Wrens prefer scouring the trees and plants for bugs. Carolinas also seems to be much more vocal; every morning, I can expect one singing (surprisingly loud) from the fence.
Hawks:
On several occasions, on count days and non-count days, I saw unidentifiable accipiter hawks swooping through the yard. On one occasion, I got some pictures of one sitting by the neighbor’s feeder and on another day, I saw one sitting by my feeder. I never got a good enough look to ID any of the ones I saw on count days, but readers of this blog thought the one I photographed was a Sharp-shinned Hawk.
I assume he’s been eating sparrows since those are the only birds whose counts have been lower than I expected them to be. The wrens, titmice, chickadees, and finches all seem to show up in basically the same numbers each week so I suspect they’re avoiding the hawks.
Goldfinches:
I was thrilled to see goldfinches show up in my yard at long last. I have my sister to thank. She got me some nyjer bags for Christmas, and the goldfinches arrived withing days of putting them out.
Lesser Goldfinches will only take nyjer seed from the bags, while American Goldfinches who seem to prefer the nyjer bags, will use the tube feeder when the bags are crowded.
I had hoped to see the American Goldfinches in breeding plumage, but they seem to have mostly left, although I did see one this weekend in transitional plumage. I hope he sticks around so I can see him in his full golden glory.
Blue Jays:
Through most of the winter, the Blue jays came around only for the peanuts. As things warmed up, and nesting season began, they started taking suet again, which they didn’t touch during winter, ceding it instead to the wrens, titmice, kinglets, warblers, and mockingbirds. They also come around more and more for the regular seeds, but the peanuts are still the favorite.
Cardinals:
(no pictures. try back next year)
During the fall and winter, the cardinals only come around in the very early hours before dawn and the dusky hour between sunset and dark. During spring and summer they come around the feeders at all times of the day.
Doves:
White-winged Doves are the most prevalent and obvious birds at our platform feeder during spring and summer, but through fall and winter, there are substantially fewer and the Mourning Doves come around a bit more frequently.
Mockingbirds:
The mockingbirds come regularly for suet in the winter, but lose all interest in it when it gets warmer out. There is a pair nesting in the neighbor’s cedar tree, but their only interest in my yard now is the birdbath.
Titmice:
The Black-crested Titmice are almost always the first ones to check out a new feeder, and often the first ones to the worms in the morning, thus earning them the nickname Pigmice. They’re still my favorites, though.
Every morning in winter, one or two would burst from the wren box and start scolding me from a nearby tree until I had the worms out. Now that it’s warmer, they’ve left the box for the wrens and are nesting elsewhere, but they’re still first in line at the worm feeder most mornings.
And, now, some lists…
The Visitors:
The numbers are the highest numbers of individuals seen at one time.
- White-winged Dove (25)
- Chipping Sparrow (24)
- House Sparrow (20)
- American Goldfinch (8)
- Common Grackle (8)
- House Finch (5)
- Northern Mockingbird (4)
- Brown-headed Cowbird (4)
- Black-crested Titmouse (3)
- Mourning Dove (3)
- Carolina Chickadee (3)
- European Starling (3)
- Blue Jay (3)
- Lesser Goldfinch (3)
- Bewick’s Wren (2)
- Carolina Wren (2)
- Northern Cardinal (2)
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet (2)
- Red-bellied Woodpecker (2)
- Black-chinned Hummingbird (2)
- Orange-crowned Warbler (1)
- Ladder-backed Woodpecker (1)
- Accipiter sp. (1)
- American Robin (1)
- Red-winged Blackbird (1)
- Song Sparrow (1)
The Permanent Collection:
These are the birds that appeared in all 20 counts.
- White-winged Dove
- Carolina Chickadee
- Black-crested Titmouse
- Carolina Wren
- Bewick’s Wren
- Chipping Sparrow
All of these are permanent residents except the Chipping Sparrows. They will depart for points north in the next week or so, and return in October. If past years are any guide, we will see flocks of 60-70 in the yard for a day or 2 and then they will be gone.
House Sparrow only missed one week (Dec 27), which was incidentally, the first time I saw an accipiter hawk. Smart sparrows.
Passing Through:
Birds that came for a distinct span of time and then left.
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1.3.09 – 2.7.09)
- American Robin (2.28.09 – 3.14.09)
- Orange-crowned Warbler (1.3.09 – 3.14.09)
- Red-winged Blackbird (3.7.09 – 3.14.09)
I’ll be curious to see if these species come around these times next year.
Sometimes Birds:
Birds that are here year-round. They don’t come by the yard very often, but were kind enough to stop by on at least one count day.
- Accipiter sp (Sharp-shinned or Cooper’s Hawk)
- Red-bellied Woodpecker
- Ladder-backed Woodpecker
- Red-winged Blackbird
- European Starling
Spring/Summer Birds:
These are the birds that hang around the yard only during spring and summer along with their arrival dates.
- American Robin (2.21)
- Common Grackle (3.07)
- Black-chinned Hummingbird (3.21)
Biggest Flocks:
These are the largest groups of individuals seen at one time.
- White-winged Dove (25 on 3.14.09)
- Chipping Sparrow (24 on 1.17.09)
- House Sparrow (20 on 12.06.08)
- American Goldfinch (8 on 02.21.09)
- Common Grackle (8 on 03.07.09 & 03.21.09)
Life Birds:
These are the birds I had never seen and saw for the first time as a result of paying closer attention to the feeders.
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet
- Orange-crowned Warbler
- Brown-headed Cowbird
- Lesser Goldfinch
- Accipter sp. (probably Sharp-shinned Hawk)
Non-avian Feeder Visitors:
- Fox Squirrel
- Virginia Opossum
Project FeederWatch was a fun and eye-opening experience. I intend to continue counting birds and uploading my counts to ebird for the rest of 2009, and I will definitely be participating again next year.
∞
A young oak trembles:
the dying gusts of winter.
Flowers in the grass.
∞
An hour before sunrise,
rain drizzles through the trees.
A wren sings nearby.
∞
Swallows fill the sky,
returning on springtime winds,
far above our kites
∞
Just water on the pond—
the ducks have gone north.
Clouds cross a daytime moon.
Jays work on a nest.
∞
At migration’s end,
a scissor-tailed flycatcher
perches on a wire.
∞
I build my garden
and plan my meals.
The birds watch
and plan theirs.
∞
hailstones
rip through trees
and melt
∞
Spring’s first hummingbird
huddles against the cold.
Waiting for the sun.
—
These are for Read Write Prompt #72: Spring Is Sprung. I’ve been bogged down with other projects (a video, a series of poems, my job) so these are taken from my other blog, a gnarled oak, where I publish haiku and haiku-like things about nature (mostly). I’ve been writing a number of spring-themed poems there so I pulled some to share here. I also cross-post most of these to Twitter, so if you’re into this sort of thing, you can check that out too.
Happy spring!
Sometimes the most interesting visitors come by night. I usually bring the feeder in after dark, but some nights the possum beats me to it. Phoebe discovered him up there and despite her best efforts throwing herself into the air, she couldn’t get him so no possum stew for the pups.
This was the last week of counting for Project FeederWatch, and the hummingbirds finally showed up. When I looked out the window on Saturday morning a very fluffy looking Black-chinned Hummingbird was huddled on one of the hanging flowerpots near the hummingbird feeder. He occasionally would drink and then go back to perch. When the sun finally came up, he buzzed over to a tree and watched the feeder, diligently chasing away any other hummer that happened to come near.
Here’s my last count for the 2008-2009 FeederWatch Season:
- White-winged Dove (12)
- Mourning Dove (1)
- Black-chinned Hummingbird (2)
- Blue Jay (1)
- Carolina Chickadee (1)
- Black-crested Titmouse (1)
- Carolina Wren (1)
- Bewick’s Wren (2)
- Northern Mockingbird (1)
- Chipping Sparrow (5)
- Northern Cardinal (1)
- Common Grackle (5)
- House Finch (4)
- Lesser Goldfinch (3)
- House Sparrow (4)
Tomorrow, I’ll do a post about what I learned about my backyard from participating in Project FeederWatch.
Dreams, like dew in the early morning,
drip from a shipwreck survivor’s rag.
Each glistening drop a chance, hope
against another day of slow gnawing
thirst.
Dreams are dew in these latitudes—precious, scarce.
To cling to one is to forsake the other.
Staring at the dew collected on his faded rag,
he squeezes it above his mouth.
Each drop a moment’s
relief.
In the blistering afternoon,
dreams of early morning dew
fly off like the shorebirds
he imagined yesterday.
He marvels at each drop,
each perfect liquid globe,
like the one surrounding him,
that only delays
thirst.
In these shimmering drops,
he sees sharks and a noose
tied by his own hand.
Each dream falls due
against the night,
the moon’s reflection,
endless rolling waves
fade
like dreams,
like dew
in the early
morning.
—
This is for Read Write Poem: It’s all about the First Line. The idea was that participants would contribute a line of poetry and then choose someone else’s as the starting point for a poem based on freewriting from the borrowed line.
This was heavily influenced by Jules Verne’s The Survivors of the Chancellor, which I read last week as part of my Lost reading project.
The first line, “Dreams like dew in the early morning” was provided by Sam at thinking cities… Make sure to pay him a visit and read some of his poetry. It’s good stuff.