Playing favorites

I’ve chosen a favorite among the birds who frequent our backyard bird feeder: an intrepid white-breasted nuthatch who is invariably the first bird to return to the feeder after a flyby-hawk scare. I don’t know whether it’s always the same nuthatch—I haven’t watched our assortment of feeder-birds closely enough to tell members of a particular species apart. But I know there’s always a lone nuthatch who ventures back to the feeder before the other birds do, as if he knows the food will be his, without challenge or competition, if he’s a bit bolder than the rest.

Boldness is a brash and typically stupid move: bold birds make easy meals for predators, vulnerable as they are in their lonely, exposed spots. As much as I’d love to see our resident Cooper’s hawk in action, swooping down from a nearby limb to snatch an inattentive bird at or near our feeder, I don’t want to see a hawk pluck this particular bird. Not a nuthatch, I find myself silently praying to a predator as lightning-fast and invisible as God. Take one of the juncos, or a dim-witted dove, or as many house sparrows as you can stomach, but leave my intrepid nuthatches to live another day.

I’m not sure what it is I find so endearing about nuthatches. I’m charmed, I think, by their jerky, wind-up motions, especially the way they scoot down tree trunks and stiffly hop from limb to limb. I like their honking, almost-cartoonish chuckle, and the assortment of soft squeaks and toots they make among themselves when they’re neither calling nor singing: conversational chips among familiars, like an elderly couple’s mundane chitchat at the breakfast table. I’m cheered by nuthatches’ squat, cigar-like shape and by the fact that they are like chickadees in color but entirely different in posture and demeanor. Chickadees are round and cute—adorable little balls of birdish good cheer—whereas nuthatches are oblong and stubby, clownishly quirky and jerky. Chickadees chatter while nuthatches chuckle; chickadees flit and flutter while nuthatches scoot and jerk. Chickadees are what you’d want a pert and alert bird to look and act like, and nuthatches are comedic caricatures of awkwardly avian behavior: fleet and agile flyers who become clowns on the ground.

J has a short video he shot when we first set up our bird feeder and he trained his camera on it, using a tripod and long lens. The video shows a nuthatch feeding alone on the feeder—my intrepid favorite, or another like him—when a male cardinal lands next to him, sending the hanging feeder spinning with the impetus of his lighting. The nuthatch doesn’t flit away; instead, he clings to his perch and flips upside down, flashing his wings at the cardinal in an aggressive display: back off, I was here first.

Who wouldn’t root for a bird who stands up to a bullying newcomer twice his size?

I don’t have any photos of the white-breasted nuthatches that frequent our backyard feeder, so today’s illustrations come from my photo archives: a white-breasted nuthatch on a colorful feeder behind our neighborhood elementary school, an immature Cooper’s hawk in our backyard, a chickadee near the feeder shown in the first photo, and a red-breasted nuthatch in the tall pines that border our backyard.

 

Best of 2012

Today’s Photo Friday theme is “Best of 2012,” which gives me an excuse to review the photos I took in 2012. This past year wasn’t a particularly photo-rich year for me: for the first few months of 2012, Reggie was so frail, we didn’t go far on our daily dog walks, which meant I didn’t take many pictures…and after Reggie died in April, I walked even less, which again meant I didn’t take many pictures.

My favorite photo from 2012 comes from an August trip to the Columbus Zoo, which points to how few interesting photos I took close to home last year. Taking photos at a zoo is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel: you have a captive subject, so it becomes a matter of choosing which angle on which flamingo is your favorite. The Columbus Zoo has large, grassy enclosure where flamingos wander freely around an artificial pond, and the flamingos were vigorously flapping, squawking, and fussing when J and I saw them: captive subjects that were nevertheless moving and active.

Given how many and how active these birds were, it a bit of a challenge to choose the three flamingo pictures I included in that day’s photo set. When you are blessed with abundance, you can afford to be picky, and the photos I ultimately picked showed solitary flamingos at rest: not the entire flock, but a quiet moment experienced within the flock. Apparently I like my flamingos calm and elegant, not fussing and squawking.

One of my resolutions for 2013 is to walk more, which also means take more pictures. Only time will tell how the “Best of 2013″ compares with the “Best of 2012.”

This is my contribution for today’s Photo Friday theme, “Best of 2012.” I originally blogged that first flamingo photo at the beginning of this post. Here are links to past “Best of” posts: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004.

 

Freshly fledged

This morning I rescued a fledgling cardinal that had fallen into the window well outside our basement laundry room. Scruffy, olive-colored with reddish tints, and no larger than a fat sparrow, he was peeping incessantly, calling to his parents as if they could extricate him from the deep, narrow space he’d fallen into. When I went outside to survey the situation, the fledgling was patiently sitting on the basement window-sill, looking in, as if he were both confident his parents would rescue him and curious about the kind of washer and dryer we have.

I lifted the fledgling from the window well with a small shovel that easily fit into its narrow confines. Scooping the bird onto the shovel blade, I tried to lift him onto a nearby shrub, but instead of hopping onto a readily available branch, the fledgling immediately fluttered back toward the known safety of the window well, catching himself then clinging to the brick wall above it. I scooped the fledgling back onto the shovel blade, this time walking him further away from the house before gently dumping him into a low, sheltering shrub where his mother zoomed in and shrieked, reclaiming him.

When you think of how clumsy and hapless fledgling birds are, it’s a wonder any of them survive to adulthood. Even in the lush and leafy suburbs, dangers abound: there are window wells to fall into, prowling cats and other predators, and omnipresent cars. A young bird that can barely fly can easily fall into harm’s way, there being no shortage of creatures who would enjoy a tasty bite of fresh fledgling.

As I gently dumped this morning’s young cardinal into the low, sheltering shrub where his frantic mother reclaimed him, I couldn’t help but think of the first-year students that harried parents are gently delivering to college campuses around the country this week. Like fresh fledglings, first-year students wear their plumage proudly, venturing into grown-up situations that they confidently believe they can manage for themselves. There are a lot of dangers, threats, and pitfalls a first-year student can tumble into, and part of my job as a first-year composition instructor is to stand near, eyes and ears open, alert for the first warning peeps of a new flyer tumbled into trouble.

I didn’t have time to photograph this morning’s cardinal fledgling, so today’s post is illustrated with images adult male cardinals from my photo archives.

 

Cedar surprise

One of the things I love about cedar waxwings is how unpredictable they are. Waxwings are nomadic creatures, traveling in flocks from one berry-bearing tree to another. A flock of waxwings will descend upon a fruiting crab-apple tree, feast until their bellies are bursting, and then move on to better, more berry-laden trees.

Today, there were two flocks of cedar waxwings working the crab-apple trees at Keene State College: one in the trees by the Student Center, and other working the trees by the library. I wasn’t expecting to see waxwings as I walked from my car to my summer school class and back: that’s what I love about waxwings. Right when you’re not expecting to see much of anything is when waxwings typically appear, descending upon the trees of your otherwise ordinary afternoon, keening and calling until you look up to notice them, surprised again. The next time I’m on campus, who knows where these nomads will be, appearing like an unbidden apparition to some other oblivious soul.

 

Not-quite-spring fling

A pair of woodpeckers flits and cackles, the male scooting on his branch while the female looks away, toward a chuckling nuthatch.

 

Unsolved mystery

Was that a sapsucker squealing from a tall pine this morning, his whiny squeak like a dog’s rubber chew toy? I’ll never know.

This is my day fourteen contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

Clear and cold

Awoke to a hard frost, but still no snow. Among the chuckling nuthatches, a titmouse whistles his clear song.

This is my day eleven contribution to this month’s River of Stones.

 

All is calm

If you’re a wild turkey looking for a quiet place to lie low for the holidays, you could do far worse than choosing to nestle beside a grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, far from hungry hunters or cooks with roasting pans. Cemeteries provide a tranquil respite from even the most hectic holiday hubbub, and Mount Auburn has a long history of harboring creatures who simply want to lie in a safe spot.

 

Bounty

Is there anything that says “abundance” more than a robin feasting on bittersweet berries?

 

Hawkeyed

Here’s more proof that at least one of our neighborhood red-tailed hawks is still hanging around the Cochituate Aqueduct Trail.