Watching the Birds

by Sheila Connolly

When we lived in Pennsylvania, for a time we had a resident mockingbird.  I don't know that I ever saw it (or would recognize it if I did), but one year it decided to serenade us regularly at midnight, just as we were trying to fall asleep.  Like clockwork, it would start its repertory and run through a series of different calls, clearly and precisely, repeating each one twice—no more, no less.  I think I actually counted them, and went though about eighteen before he started over.

I was reminded of this when earlier this week I was awakened before six a.m. by some other brave "early bird" (sorry, I couldn't resist).  No, it wasn't a mockingbird.  I have no idea what it was.  I apologize for my great ignorance to all dedicated birders out there who are reading this.  Anyway, as I listened to this morning mystery bird, I found myself thinking, how would I describe that on paper?

Which of course led me to think of David Allen Sibley's Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. I have a copy that I keep on my kitchen table, next to the window from which I can see my two birdfeeders.  I live close to the center of a small town, and my lot is small (and there are a number of neighborhood cats that roam freely), so the birds that appear are few in variety.  There's an extended family of cardinals that live nearby and visit regularly for the sunflower seeds I put out.  There are the ubiquitous sparrows.  In the spring I see the occasional cedar waxwing.  This week I waved to a passing goldfinch, but they're rare here.  In short, nothing particularly extraordinary visits, but I do enjoy watching whatever appears.

But to get back to the point, I love reading Sibley's book because he makes a valiant attempt to transliterate (is that the word I want?) the calls of each and every bird.  And the results crack me up.

Who knew that the golden eagle makes high yelping calls, while the bald eagle (we do have a nesting pair not far from here, the location of their nest carefully not made public) makes weak, flat chirping whistles?  The Great Horned Owl (which I did hear occasionally back in Pennsylvania, although I never saw one) makes "a deep muffled hooting in rhythmic series ho hoo hoo hoododo hooooo hoo." The courting female is said to respond with a "nasal barking guwaay." (Did Sibley notice that looks a lot like "go away"?)

Open the book to any random page and you find all sorts of entertaining descriptions.  Take, for example, the Dickcissel (I don't know that I've ever met one, although Sibley tells me they like to hang out with House Sparrows, and I have plenty of them).  Here's how a Dickcissel sounds, per Sibley:  "song a series of short notes skee-dlees chis chis chis with dry, insect-like quality.  Call a dry husky chek. Flight call a distinctive, low, electric buzz fpppt."

You have to admire the man, who must have spent untold hours just listening, and then trying to capture the sounds in writing, making each one distinct.  There's a lesson somewhere in here for writers.  If you're describing your protagonist sitting outside on a nice summer morning with a cup of coffee, do you write "she could hear birds chirping," or do you say something like, "she could pick out the hard sharp tik tik of the cardinals gathered at her bird feeder"? It makes a difference.

The Wildlife in My Yard

Elizabeth Zelvin

Many years ago, I saw the Olivier movie version of Hamlet with someone who’d never read or seen the play in any form. I remember constantly having to shush him as he laughed with delight at discovering where “all those one-liners” came from: “To be or not to be,” “the play’s the thing,” “something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” and “frailty, thy name is woman.” Before images and turns of phrase become cliché, someone with a gift for a fresh turn of phrase has to think them up. Shakespeare probably holds the record, certainly in English, for original expressions that remain vivid and well used four centuries later. I suspect that his collective works is topped as a source of “one-liners” only by the Bible.

Many useful metaphors and similes, however, have emerged not from literary genius but from everyday observation. I first read Hamlet at fifteen (and fell in love with the melancholy prince, whom I pictured as a cross between Olivier and my high school English teacher). But not until much later in life, when I acquired my first backyard bird feeder, did I realize that such expressions as “the pecking order” and “the peaceable dove” are based on actual bird behavior.

For the cost of a forty-pound bag of black oil sunflower seed, I’ve had endless hours of entertainment sitting on my deck—or even at my strategically positioned computer looking out through the sliding door—watching an endless parade of birds doing what they do. At one moment, a squabble breaks out among a band of house finches. As Roger Tory Peterson, legendary ornithologist and bird book author, says, house finches are “aggressive at the feeder.” A feisty little tufted titmouse nudges a skittish white-breasted nuthatch off the perch: the pecking order at work. When the oversized grackle with its iridescent black feathers and malevolent yellow eye arrives, all the other birds vanish. He’s the highest on the pecking order of all our visitors, with the possible exception of the red-bellied woodpecker, who’s big and self-confident enough to defend the block of orange-flavored suet. Mourning doves scratch the ground for fallen seed. The reason they’ve been used over and over as a symbol for peace is that they stand outside the pecking order altogether. They ignore the other birds, and none ever try to jostle or chase them away.

Let’s take “bird-brained” as a metaphor for unintelligent or foolish. It certainly fits the little black and white downy woodpecker, which never learns that all it has to do to get the suet is pop into the cage that keeps the squirrels out and dig in. Every time, it starts by perching at the top of the wrought-iron pole from which the suet cage hangs, swivels its head in a series of jerks like C3P0 to check all around, and slides down the pole like a firefighter. It jabs through the bars of the cage, working its way all around, before it finally hops inside and starts to feed. (Imagine yourself clinging to a six-foot block of chocolate and chowing down.) The whole process takes so long that some higher-echelon bird, the raucous blue jay or the persistent catbird, comes along before it gets a single bite. Male or female (Mr. Downy has a blotch of red at the back of his head), one generation after another, they miss a lot of meals because they’re programmed for these lengthy preliminaries.

The feeder birds move faster than my four-year-old granddaughter, which is saying a lot. My digital camera did better with the hefty rabbit—a baby bunny just a month ago—and the squirrel. Squirrels are a little smarter. The baffles on our bird feeders—cone-shaped metal collars half way up the pole—work. But every generation or two a thinking squirrel comes along. You’ll see it test the baffle over and over, then retreat to the ground and stare up at the seed beyond, wondering what else it can try.

Over the years, we've had visits from possum, raccoon, turtles, chipmunks, field mice, owls, hawks, and so many deer that the deer fence I got to keep them from eating the flowers a couple of years ago is at the top of my list of favorite presents ever. We've had AWOL puppies drop by, and a neighboring cat had her kittens in our crawl space. We've had a bird knock itself out against our sliding door, another get stuck with its head in the tube feeder. To my relief, both of these incidents ended happily, with the bird recovered and flying away. In general, it's nice to share the planet--and the yard--with these lively visitors.

I can't???

By Lonnie Cruse

Ever notice where some birds build their nests? I don't mean in bird houses, which of course many do. Or trees, even though they build there too. I'm talking about birds building nests inside the letters of the huge signs over grocery stores, but usually in the O or the E, which are nicely rounded, because V or K probably isn't all that comfortable.

Or they build on bridges, in the upper spans where most humans would be terrified to sit/stand. And you can see them working away as you whiz by, or hear them chirping merrily as you enter the store. I guess what amazes me about this is that the birds don't know they aren't supposed to be there, doing what they're doing. So they just do it.

Sometimes we humans allow ourselves be kept from trying to reach our dreams, from trying to "fly," because of the opinions of others. Well meaning friends telling us we can't do what we want to do. They say we don't have the talent, smarts, experience, courage, whatever. . .and sadly, we buy into it.

Is there something you've always wanted to try but didn't think you could succeed? Something not illegal, imoral, or fattening, of course! Then why not try it? Spread your wings and fly, or build your nest someplace totally strange and scary. Reach for your dream. And be sure to hang onto that railing. Don't let the wind blow you off the bridge!

Don't think you know how? Take writing, for instance. Love a certain author's writing but think you could never be that good? Most likely you won't, and neither will I ever be that good, but we can read that author's work with an eye to what makes it so great: how are the scenes are set, how is humor or suspense or romance sprinkled in (because likely the author isn't hitting the reader over the head with it, but sliding it in, here and there, in appropriate places.) How does the author let the reader come to know the characters? By dumping page after page of information that puts us to sleep or by subtle hints here and there that makes the reader think: "Ahah! That's why..." How does the writer describe the setting or the weather? Figure out what works for that author and learn how to do it for yourself. There are a lot of good stories out there, and many of them just need a bit of spit and polish to become GREAT stories.

Is there a novel buried somewhere inside you? Why not build a nest at your desk and write it? And let us know, here at Poe's Daughters, when it's published.