Birdseed

Last winter, I regularly filled three birdfeeders.  Squirrels thought that two of them were put there for them.  Never mind that I bought them because they were "squirrel-proof."  There's no such thing.  So this winter, I got smart.  I fill one feeder.  It has a squirrel baffle on it, and so far, so good.  I buy a seed mix that is appropriate for this area, and I pop in two suet cakes for the woodpeckers.  I am as diligent as I can be in making sure that the feeder is filled every day, and I am rewarded for that by having regular customers.

Most of my visitors are the usual junkos and nuthatches, adorable little things that leave tiny arrow footprints on the snow that has drifted onto my porch.  There are usually a couple of brilliant male cardinals and their not so flamboyant mates, a few bully bluejays, and some downy woodpeckers.  This morning, I was host to at least a dozen mourning doves on the ground below the feeder.  (I look forward to those summer mornings when their cooing wakes me at dawn.)

But every once in awhile, I am treated to a fickle visitor, that impressive pileated woodpecker.  He is glorious in his size, his color, his stance.  And he is compelling.  I will stand at the window in a standoff . . . which one of us will leave first?  (It's usually him.)

What I am in love with today is the birds' appetite and their manner of satiating it.  I will spend $30 on a 40-pound bag of birdseed, lug it into and out of my Jeep, dig into it every day to fill the feeder, and before I know it, it is time to go out and buy another bag.  This summer, I grew some sunflowers and painstakingly harvested the seeds from them in the fall, thinking I was so resourceful in being able to feed the birds from my own harvest.  Well, those seeds are long gone, and there is still a lot of winter to go.

Birdseed is tiny.  Birds are tiny.  Surely, mine is not the only feeder they are frequenting.  It is amazing to me that these little visitors can ask so little and then consume so much.  And they do it joyously.  Today was full of snow and sleet, but that did not stop my little friends from meeting at their local bistro and filling up on manna.

Michael Smith wrote a song that I find dear.  "We Become Birds."  I like the idea.  I am in love with that which feeds all those souls who have returned to us.  I love that my birdseed allows them to stick around for awhile.



     And the whole day goes by
     Birds and more birds
     We become birds when we die
     We fly away but we come back
     We become birds when we die