Communing With the Birds

At our last house

a squirrel visited each morning

pausing to check out what I was doing

Here in Maine

a bright red cardinal visits

such a beautiful flash of brilliance

against all the lush green.

xx

Nesting: Birds and Writers

Every year the robins scope out our porch

seeking shelter for their nest

and every year 

they slop twigs and straw and leaves

every which way

and usually the mess-nest 

falls

three or four or five times

but they pick all the mess back up

and slop it up against the pillar

which isn't nearly wide enough

for a secure nest

but they are stubborn

and keep at it

and slop some mud in it

to cement it to the

white pillar

and you know I'm going to

compare

this to writing a book, right?

. . .the way I toss this and that 

onto the page

hoping it sticks

and sometimes it doesn't

and it makes a mess

but I am stubborn

and I keep at it

cementing those words

to the

white page.

ciao, bellas . . .

xx

Small Critters

 Mini critters seem to be multiplying here.  We're not able to keep real animals inside (because of travel and allergies), so these are stand-ins. I'm not quite sure why, but turtles, squirrels and birds are regarded as lucky in this house.

We'll be immersed in/with grandchildren the next couple weeks, so my blogging may lag behind.  Be well, everyone  . . . and may the good-luck critters be with you . . .

Do you have any good-luck tokens?

Chasing Redbird

Cardinals, those surprising flashes of red in the air or the trees, suggest something both stunning and illusive.

Fifteen years ago, I sat down to write a book with only the title in mind: Chasing Redbird. On one level Chasing Redbird is the story of a girl uncovering a trail one summer, of finding her place in her family and the world, but on another level it is about the process of creation, of uncovering the trail of the story.

With every story I write, I feel as if I am chasing a redbird, and I hope I will find it. I don't have to 'catch' it; I just have to find it, see it, and show it to you.

More Birds Fly!

Look what was huddled on the corner of the porch this morning: baby sparrow.  I thought it might be injured, but as I approached it flew off to a nearby bush. This bird comes from the 'tenement' birdhouse that is below the robins' nest (the robins left the nest two days ago.)

Here is what the sparrow looked like just a week ago, a tiny, scrawny thing:

See it there, on the right, emerging from the green house?  (You can also see the baby robins above in their nest.)

There is one more sparrow left to leave the tenement. I hope it goes today, so I can snap out of this bird-hypnosis!

Birds Take Off!

When I walked out onto the porch yesterday, swoosh, one of the baby robins flew out of the nest and landed bumpily in the bushes. One of the parent robins soon came to lead it to a more secluded spot.

As I returned to the house, a second babe fluttered over my head, skimming my hair and landed on the porch, plop:

It then hopped under a planter:

About an hour later, I went out onto the back porch--on the other side of the house--and was about to sit down in a deck chair, when I saw this beneath it:

Oops. It's baby number two.  Not sure how it found its way around the house to this spot.  I called for the mother or father to come lead the bird away.  Seriously.

Back to the front porch nest to worry over bird number three, still in the nest. All alone.  All day and all night long.

This morning, that third bird finally plopped out of the nest and onto a table.  I called for the mother or father to lead it away.  They probably did.

I hope so, because one hour later, we saw a cat and four kittens crawl out from under the deck! What?

It's a regular animal nursery around here.

Toddler Robins

I can't help it. More bird pics. This second brood of robins commands more or our attention because the nest is directly outside the kitchen window and the front door.  Truly: those mouths are open from dawn to dusk. Parents are busy snatching up every bug in sight and dropping it down their throats.

There is a third baby bird in the nest which seems to be stepped on and sat on a lot. Here it strains for position in the middle:

I was the second oldest of five and didn't get stepped on too much; neither did my older sister or three younger brothers because they were all too cute or too scrappy. We're a close bunch.

You? Were you stepped on or sat on?  Or too cute? Too scrappy?

Feed Me!

There are three baby robins, now four days old, in this nest.

"Feed me!"

They're not making any noise, but those mouths seem always open, and all day long, the parent birds fly to and fro delivering food: worms plucked from moist earth, and moths and other insects from plants and bushes.

Hard to get any work done with these sweet things so near . . . although maybe watching is part of my 'work.'

New Books, New Birds

I keep a running list of books that I'd like to read, and if the titles still resonate a week or two or three later, I buy them. Above are the most recent purchases and it feels like Christmas--wow!

Along with the new books came three new baby robins–hatched yesterday–in a porch nest. Two are seen here:

They remain in that position all day, mouths perpetually open, waiting for the parents to bring them morsels.

New books, new birds: feasts for the eyes, the mind, the soul.

Ciao, bellas. . . .

Birdhouse Wings

My husband's sense of humor . . .

My husband and I spent nearly twenty years working in boarding schools in England and Switzerland, and another eight years at one in the U.S.  When new buildings were built on these campuses, fundraising campaigns sometimes offered large donors (size of donation, not size of donors) a chance to have the building named after them.

For my birthday last year, my husband put up these signs (click to enlarge) on the birdhouse on the front porch.

haha.

For another view of this birdhouse/townhouse see last week's post below.

So: question for you today. If a building were named after you, what sort of building would you want it to be?

Porch Residents

This birdhouse hangs on our front porch and was first used by finches, who raised their young and then vacated. The chickadees then swooped in and pulled out all the nesting materials of the finches and 'redecorated,' raising this current flock. (Click to enlarge.*)

The nest on top is from a robin who moved in above the chickadees after already raising one brood over a nearby porch light. The robin apparently prefers this real estate for her next brood. The chickadees do not seem amused and occasionally there are squabbles between the chickadees and robins.

I've had to go out there a couple times and ask them to knock it off.

Feed Me

My story, like these baby robins, is sitting there with its mouth open, calling, "Feed me, feed me, feed me."

And I, like the parent birds, am scurrying around gathering up nourishment. 

That story is hungry, I tell you.  Hungry.  I hope I find enough to fill up its belly.

Pay no attention to the messy nest, with its bits of wire and paper, twigs and mud. My nest is not that messy. 

Wonder what you are scrambling to feed these days.

Ready to Fly

Sunday, 28 June, 2009

These are last year's baby robins just before they left the nest on our front porch. We saw them fly, one by one. Four of them were crammed in this nest and then one day the parents sat in a nearby tree calling to them and off they went. We watched, astounded at this 'normal' miracle.

Robins (the same?) built a nest in the same place this spring, laid eggs, and the mother sat on them. One morning, though, we found the nest on the porch floor, the eggs crushed. We can't figure out what could have knocked them down, as this lamp is about six feet high, with no place for an animal to climb nearby. Bats, maybe?