LETTER FROM BOBOLINK FARM
LIFE LESSON
By Barbara Tatham Johnson
The bird feeders, plastic tubes hanging on metal rods that are mounted on
the railings of both front and rear porches, attract a variety of birds. A
close view of the birds is a winter treat. The species of bird visitors
changes from winter to winter. When natural food is available in the north,
we do not see common redpolls or pine siskins. If winter conditions are
harsh in Canada, flocks of snow buntings wheel and whirl above the
snow-covered meadow and skitter nervously to eat seed spilled beneath the
feeders.
This week a small flock of dark-eyed juncos with a companion white-throated
sparrow come daily. Chickadees and blue jays bustle in and out, but the
dozens of goldfinches that fed hungrily at our feeders before each of
January’s heavy snows are absent. We miss them.
Thoughts of goldfinches remind me of the winter of 1993 when we tracked the
perseverance of one bird. The winter was mild and open until the arrival of
the first real snow at the end of January. That year we placed a small
roofed platform feeder close to the tube feeders. Small fruit trees and a
forsythia bush offered shelter in the front of the house. At the rear, we
tied several hemlock branches upright to the railing to provide shelter for
the feeding birds. Here lawn and kitchen garden presented an expanse of open
unprotected flight for birds arriving from the streamside woods to feed. We
did not want to draw birds into the deadly path of hungry hawks or owls.
I look in my nature journal for the log I kept of one goldfinch’s survival
that winter. There I re-read the details of a small bird’s efforts to
endure.
January 31, 1993: The first heavy snow this season began today. After
lunch we notice an injured goldfinch on the ground below the front porch
feeders and find an area of feather dust with a few tiny feathers where she
smacked against one of the big windows overlooking the feeders and front
yard. She is alert, but her right wing is bent at an awkward angle, up and
away from her body. Feathers at her nape and right cheek are in disarray. We
decide to let her get her bearings and see if she can feed. Light snow
falls. At 3:00 P.M. we see the goldfinch has somehow reached the tray of the
platform feeder and is slowly dragging herself on a circuit of the tray as
she eats. A starling arrives, and the goldfinch flings herself twenty feet
out into the yard and lands on the ground. With hops, flutters, and
somersaults, the little bird struggles across the inch or so of accumulating
snow to the base of the plum tree. She fumbles over to the forsythia bush
and, with effort, gains a perch on a low branch where she grooms herself and
puts her feathers in order as best as she can. The injured wing remains
askew. As darkness descends, she climbs higher in the bush and with
laborious fluttering crosses fifteen feet to reach the flowerbed by the
garage wall. There she pushes into the shelter of a clump of golden yarrow
to spend the night.
February 1, 1993: Snow falls steadily. We estimate eight inches are on
the ground. At midday we see the goldfinch close to the porch, perched in
the quince tree. She hurls herself over to the platform feeder, a distance
of two feet, and circuits the tray, feeding for ten minutes. Sated, she
jumps to the porch railing. She moves back and forth from railing to
platform feeder, often pushing aside other hungry goldfinches. If the
platform feeder is crowded, she waits until there are fewer goldfinches
aboard. The birds gorge on seed to help them survive the stormy night. In
their frenzy, some miss the tray on approach, falling into the snow and
almost sinking out of sight. Immediately, with outstretched wings, they
fight their way up and out to regain the feeders. The injured goldfinch can
perch on the tube feeders now, using her left foot, pressing her uninjured
left side against the plastic. In spite of the blizzard-like conditions, she
manages to move herself to the platform feeder and back to the porch railing
without falling into the snowy yard.
Late in the day, the snow is over two feet deep. As darkness grows, the
goldfinch is startled from the platform feeder by the arrival of starlings
and falls into the snow. With a sort of swimming lopsided stroking she
manages to reach the cherry tree ten feet west of the porch. There she
scrabbles her way upward with clutching tugs of toes and beak. She reaches a
branch near the top. With good wing and injured wing beating wildly, she
dives into the deep snow piling against the foundation to spend the night in
much the way a partridge dives into a snowdrift for shelter.
February 2, 1993: The injured goldfinch is at the feeders as the morning
becomes sunny. During the day we watch her feeding in the platform tray,
giving way only at the arrival of starlings, holding her place among the
other goldfinch. We watch her lopsided rapid wing-beating flight between the
plum tree and the cherry tree, a distance of twenty feet. In childhood when
we came up lame in play, we labeled ourselves ‘gimpy’. This was less a taunt
than a description of an inconvenience. We gritted our teeth and stayed in
the game. We decide to name this determined bird ‘Gimpy’.
February 4, 1993: Strong winds keep Gimpy feeding on the packed snow
beneath the feeders. The wind drops late in the day, and, in the gloaming,
we watch Gimpy move with her furiously flaying wing beat, to the apple tree
west of the house. We rush to windows at the back of the house to keep her
in view. From the top branches of the apple tree, she launches northward,
loosing altitude rapidly. She lands low on the thick stem of a grape vine.
Here the yard drops ten feet to the stream bottom. Jumping into the air, the
little bird beats her way, dropping steadily, toward a grove of hemlocks.
She lands in the lower branches and makes her way into the thick growth for
a night’s rest. She managed to cross close to two hundred and twenty feet.
February 11, 1993: Gimpy feeds only at the tube feeders on the back
porch, managing to fly extended distances in her awkward strenuous way. Her
right wing is permanently set at a sharp angle from her back. She has lost
the normal roller coaster dipping flight of goldfinch, but we hear her
chirps as part of the goldfinch gabble at the feeders.
February 13, 1993: A light ice storm overnight has glazed the feathers of
many birds that come to the feeders this morning. At 7:15 A.M., Gimpy, with
icy bits on her nape and bent wing, slips about with the other goldfinches
on the ice-coated surfaces. When she hops up along the slippery snow to
regain the feeder, she is not able to fly higher. She slips and tilts her
way to the railing where she cannot gain a perch and slides under the
railing to the snow beside the porch. She turns away and hops to the bee
balm stalks poking above the snow-covered kitchen garden, a distance of
almost twenty feet. Here she scrambles atop the dry flower heads and tries
to shake away the ice on her bent wing. Her left wing is ice free, but she
cannot rid the stiff right wing feathers of ice. After a while, she hops
across the slippery snow and out of sight into the shelter of weeds. A half
an hour later when I look out, she is on the feeder tube, ice and all. She
jumps into the hemlock branch shelter we have tied on the railing and
manages to clear the ice from her right wing. In the company of another
goldfinch, she leaps into the air, beating toward the trees by the stream,
dodging the chicken coop, and disappearing into a group of birch and hemlock
trees.
February 17, 1993: Eight inches of heavy snow falls overnight. We refill
the thistle seed feeder at 6:45 A.M. and worry when Gimpy does not appear by
7:00 A.M. with other goldfinches and chickadees. At noon she is at the
feeder with another goldfinch. The wind is strong and lifts her bent wing as
she clings to her perch on the feeder and pries seed from the opening.
February 22, 1993: The third snowstorm in ten days leaves a light fluffy
eight inches that is blowing about. Gimpy is at the feeder at 6:45 A.M. when
we look out. Her flight is awkward but stronger. At noon I watch her fly
northeast from the feeder to a maple tree well beyond the chicken coop. At
12:30 P.M., Gimpy is on the front feeders. This is the first time we have
seen her there since early February. When the other goldfinches leave the
feeder, she flies off with them, showing a hint of the typical goldfinch
dipping flight. She has to launch herself from the top of the tube feeder,
but she is now part of the flock. We decide to rename her ‘Spunky’.
March 4, 1993: Spunky feeds mainly at the back porch feeders. Her flight
shows less frantic beating. She holds her course through the air.
March 13, 1993: A “white hurricane” with strong winds and snow drifts of four
feet of snow smother any thoughts of early spring. We remove the feeders to
save them in the fierce wind. Spunky feeds at the back feeders as soon as
they are returned to their places. Temperatures are very low.
March 27, 1993: The snow melts quickly as the sun strengthens. The total
snowfall was over one hundred and twelve inches since the end of January.
Today the goldfinch flock feeds on the opening poplar catkins high in the
trees. Spunky is among the flock but continues to visit the feeders on the
back porch each day. We find it harder and harder to keep track of her among
the other goldfinch.
April 21, 1993: The goldfinches are active in the trees. Their high sweet
song, with its final upward note, sounds like a giddy chorus when many sing.
A solitary goldfinch perches on the top of a maple tree near the stream. I
cannot see the bird clearly, but I hope it is Spunky. She has not come to
the feeders for many days.
Today, recalling Spunky’s resilient spirit, I am ready for whatever storms
the remaining months of this winter may bring.
