Poetry Friday: Nest Song

Happy Poetry Friday! Its nesting season and all around the house we are watching pairs of birds defending territory, mate and build homes. In honor of all the bustle I am using one of my natural treasures as a writing prompt. I found this sweet little nest wedged into a dooryard shrub after all the leaves had come down in winter in the center of a secret maze of branches.

Ornithology
A bird is a dandy, a primping sheik,
A textile wizard, with a needled beak.
A nest is a circular, spiral of life,
An egg cup holding potential flight.
A chick is a greedy, squeaking wheel,
A pin-feather craft with a wobbling keel.
A flock is whirling, southward gust,
A chattering ballet in the autumn dusk.
A birder is a lonely and  desperate scout
A sentry of skies and feeder lookout.
A old nest in winter is his private proof,
An avian placard on the cupola roof.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! We are celebrating Ru's 7th birthday and there may be some bird watching, some nest hunting and eating of malted milk ball eggs.

A Woodcock Echo

What does it mean to receive a woodcock echo? I just got one and I'm still mulling it over.

Two years ago when we lived in a condo unit near some swampy marshland a couple of towns over I wrote a blog post about birdwatching out our back windows, inspired by my sighting of a woodcock. I hadn't seen one since my college ornithology class and was surprised and excited to catch a glimpse of the funny, plump bird shuffling through the leaves out back.

Yesterday the boys and I were on a foraging expedition in a leafy, forested sliver of property around the city block from us. Its kind of a forgotten, weedy little patch of land with a little-used trail winding through it, mostly a lot of overgrown brush under some big oak trees a place where the surrounding houses dump their garden clippings in big piles along the path. The boys and I were hoping to snoop out some wild witch hazel but came home instead with wild cherry bark, sassafras root, ribbed plantain leaves, heal-all stalks and white pine needles for various medicinal syrups and salves and recreational cups of tea. (Hooray!)

On the way into the woods scuffing through the leaves we almost stumbled on the small, fawn-bellied body of a dead woodcock. I imagine one of the neighborhood cats took him out in an evening stalking session and then was disillusioned after trying to drag the large prize home and left him there in a pile of maple leaves on the sidewalk.

Its interesting blogging one's life. There are small, odd things I notice, and sock away for writing "material." And small memories often stick in my mind more cleanly...like the last time I saw a woodcock walking along on a January evening off our back patio.

I am not a squeamish girl but dead animals make me catch my breath in my throat. I stood there calming my death-panic and my brain cycled all my related memories: my backyard sighting two years ago, my college class watching woodcock mating flights at dusk, my Papa bird hunting in the fall when I was little, the funny pictures of the round little bird in our over-sized bird book at home and John James Audobon's giant paintings of woodcocks in the big, quiet library at Yale...especially the one of a dead bird, posed so exactly like the still one at our feet.

Life echos are strange things.

The boys and I stood there quietly and then I told them everything I knew about woodcocks: how they were once thought to live part of the year on the moon, how they have eyes that can see almost 360 degrees around them, how they probe their beaks into worm holes and cleverly tweak even hidden food up to the surface for themselves, how they migrate in the cold, how shy they are, how they lay their nests on the ground and how the female raises the babies alone and all about the rocketing sky-show a male gives in the spring sky at dusk. They listened and admired the pretty shades of rust and chocolate on his feathers and his long, fine bill and the gentle tuft of his small, fluffy tail. We talked about animals dying and the circling pattern of life and Nib bent down and wished for a doctor, concerned over what it meant for this pretty bird to have left his body empty, here on the sidewalk.  I squeezed their sad little hands and we scuffed off together through the echoing leaves.

At dinner over a pot of sassafras tea the boys told A all about our encounter and all the things I'd told them about the little bird. I didn't say much, mostly listened but I was interested to see how much they'd soaked in and wondered about what it meant for this bird to echo in my life this way. 

Comb Honey and September Rain

The world is a sodden, dripping place today. We are having one of those gently, sifting September rains I am so fond of. I remember the year that I abruptly started to like autumn after years of being a whiny complainer whenever it wasn't springtime.

I was taking a culinary arts class and I remember getting up very early in the morning and driving off to school with my knife kit and my gigantic recipe book in my chef whites thinking glowingly "How had I never noticed that September rain was a hidden, unnoticed loveliness in life?" I had never noticed before how vivid all the colors are in the rain and how the world slows down, such a lovely thing after the harried panic of school-starting-up-season. I love the mist that comes tip-toeing ahead of the rain in the early morning and the chilly, dankness inside once it really begins to fall....just daring you turn on the kettle and get a good book out. Everyone loves the way rain smells and I love the fact that September rain is often gentle and soothing, a reason for migrating birds to stop their flight and take a pleasant, little congregational water break.

Image via Wikipedia

Bird Migration Patterns of the world, our birds head to South America.

This morning the boys and I pressed our noses against the window and watched a flock of robins stop in our backyard on their way to Brazil or Argentina. They were singing some beautiful rainy day tunes and taking turns hopping around the gravel drive looking for weed seeds and other tidbits. I hope the find all the crabgrass seeds. Ru cocked his head and asked me, "Mommy, why do birds get so happy when it rains?" Maybe he needs to wait awhile for his own autumn epiphany.

First Harvest, my first frame of honey from my own hive.

I screwed up my courage and broke into the bee hive again to check on their stores and also harvested a little taste of honey. I won't really take in any quantity of honey this year at all, the bees need all the boost they can get just to be sure they are able to harvest enough honey to get them through their first winter on our property.

Beautiful natural comb.

I took one frame of honey and we are eating it, sliced in thin, melting globs or cut into golden, sticky squares and ferried to our mouths with dripping speed, right in the comb. The honey is very pale blonde, almost clear, just the gentlest yellow with a very high floral flavor, not at all heavy or dark. The first bite was legendary, transcendent eating.

Related articles

• #19 September: Haiga ~ Autumn Rains (19planets.wordpress.com)
• Rain-Catching Coat Is Part Art, Part Utility, Totally Awesome (pcworld.com)
• Time to start preparing your home for winter (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Weatherwatch: Early autumn bird migration (guardian.co.uk)
• Bird Migration (witchesofthecraft.wordpress.com)

Birds and Babies

Nib has recently become ridiculously smiley and talkative. Its sooo fun! I forget how completely enchanting this stage is. I get really enthralled with making him grin and coo and find it hard to keep my mind on much or work very hard on anything useful. (not that I was particularly driven before...heh) He's right on the verge of those heartbreaking, deep belly laughs and the anticipation is killing me. Every time his wee eyes crinkle into a a face splitting grin and he gurgles I wonder if this will be it. Maddening, addictive sweetness.

The roadside wildflowers are giving way to Queen Anne's Lace....last of the scattered weed blossoms and today as a result I caught a most breathtaking sight. There was an enormous flock of male goldfinches feasting on seeding chickory. I've never seen so many spontaneously gathered, brightly colored birds all in one spot before, there must have been 30 of them or so. So pretty! I wish I had a better shot but I'm afraid I scared them all off before I got any really lovely shots. See if you can squint and pick out the five finches in the photo.

And at last I have a water baby! I swear Nib is a baby of legend.  He smiles and coos, puts himself to sleep, wakes once or twice a night, only really fusses when he needs changing, food or a rest and is inordinately happy to be passed around to any obliging friend who wants to hold him for a spell....and he loves his bath! This little snap is a glimpse of him in his first real immersion bath in the big tub. I've only sponge bathed him before this. He loved the water and just placidly kicked and "floated" (with my hands underneath of course) and bath time ended up taking much more time than I allowed as it was so very fun to let him wiggle and splash and watch him grinning in the drink. What a change from Dee's painfully tearful baths which just finally became less wrought with blood curdling screams this year! *sigh*