Reflections on the Fifth Week of Winter – Flutterings

Incoming Tufted Titmouse

If a black-capped chickadee could shriek yikes, this one would have. Three times.

After a month of roller-coaster flights to the deck and flutterings by the sliding glass door, the chickadee finally found the sunflower seed feeder.

I’d worried the bird would give up and frequent some other feeder, but my husband didn’t.

“Birds have plenty to eat in the fields. They’re fine.” Spence waited for the first ground-covering snow―when any lingering black bear would crawl into his den and hibernate. On December 4^th, Spence attached the feeder to the sliding glass door.

The chickadee spotted the seeds the next morning, called Hey Sweetie to its feeding group, and perched on the edge of the seed tray. Tilting its head to spear a seed, the chickadee spotted two cats snoozing inside on the floor by the door―the first yikes. The chickadee darted to the deck railing and cocked its head. Right. Left. Up. Down.

The cats didn’t move.

The chickadee zipped in, grabbed a sunflower seed, and zoomed out. Safe on the railing, it cracked the seed then surveyed the cats. No movement. The chickadee made another trip to the feeder.

A tufted titmouse came next. It peered into the great room, fluffed and flattened its tuft, then snatched a seed.

Bird-feeder-viewing season had opened.

Black-capped Chickadee

Later, as if coordinated in a bird ballet, the chickadee and titmouse landed on the feeder together with a thud.

The feeder swooshed down the glass, and the birds―the second yikes―darted to the deck railing.

Crash. The feeder hit the deck, the titmouse flew to the white pine stand, and the chickadee cocked its head.

A moment later, the chickadee fluttered to the door where the feeder had been, gawked, and flew back to the railing. The bird stared at the door, lit on a flower pot, then dropped to the deck. After two hops, the chickadee pecked a pile of frozen potting soil. No sunflower seeds. The chickadee flew to the white willow tree, bounced on a branch, and stared at the sliding glass door.

The titmouse repeated the chickadee’s investigations.

“Why can’t they find the seeds, Spence?” I straightened my back in the Adirondack chair to see over the bottom door frame. “There are plenty scattered on the deck.”

Spence set his coffee cup on the table and got off the sofa. “They have small brains. Stop worrying.” He opened the sliding glass door just when the chickadee returned―the third yikes.

The chickadee zoomed across the south garden and disappeared into the woods.

Spence adjusted the suction cups and pressed. The feeder slipped.

A gathering of chickadees and titmice watched Spence from the willow and white pine stand.

Adjust-press-slip. Adjust-press-slip. Adjust-press-slip. He squirted dish detergent onto the suction cups and pushed them against the glass. The feeder stayed. Spence left the deck.

The birds zoomed in.

Two chickadees and a titmouse landed together―a chickadee on each side and the titmouse on top. The feeder slid two inches. The birds clamped their feet and fluttered their wings.

The seal of the suction cups loosened, the dish detergent acted as a lubricant, and feeder slid halfway to the deck before it stopped.

Flutterings stopped.

Pecking resumed.

Dark-eyed juncos  joined the group. These two-toned birds―black on top, white on the bottom―didn’t jockey for perch space. They hop-hop-skittered in the snow and pecked at the sunflower seeds that chickadees and titmice had broadcast onto the deck. Spence cheered them on. “Eat all of it. I don’t want to attract mice.”

Temperatures dropped from the forties to the thirties to the twenties.

Every time Spence or I pulled out the bottom of the feeder to add seeds, the suction cup seal broke, and the feeder top crashed onto the deck. Growling, Spence fussed over sticking the cups to the glass. “Don’t reach out,” he said when I slid the door open one morning. “Walk around from the porch. Pull the feeder straight out. It’s less likely to fall.”

I walked around from the porch, pushed the top against the glass with one hand, and eased the bottom out with the other. The suction held. Phew. I poured in sunflower seeds and eased the bottom back in place.

A pair of northern cardinals flew to the deck. With one foot in the snow and one foot tucked under his feathers, the colorful male perched on the railing. He stretched his neck making himself an inch taller, flicked his tuft, then flew to feeder. The smaller birds scattered. He scrunched his shoulders to fit between perch and top then selected several seeds.

His tan mate, after bouncing off the glass door a few times, contented herself with scavenging seeds among the four or five juncos under the feeder.

Temperatures dropped from the twenties to the teens to single digits.

American Goldfinch

Three American goldfinches, the bullies in this saga, found the feeder last. As if changing costumes for their shady role, their feathers had turned from dazzling summer gold to muted yellowish-brown. Unlike the chickadees and titmice which flew in, grabbed a seed, and flew out, the goldfinches sat and ate seed after seed after seed. Chickadees and titmice fluttered next to the perched goldfinches―bird body language for surrender your perch, seed pecked or not. The goldfinches ignored these flutterings, kept their perches, and gobbled as if in a hibernating-prep eating frenzy. Only the male cardinal could force a goldfinch to leave.

When his absence resulted in a traffic jam, the elementary-school teacher in me surfaced. I left my Adirondack chair by the wood stove fire to tap a that’s-enough protest on the window. Much bigger than the male cardinal, my approach sent the goldfinches fluttering in retreat.

Through the month of December, into January, and during last weekend’s fifteen-inch snow dump, the antics of the winter bird show continued. Mid afternoon last Sunday, Spence shoveled the deck, filled the feeder, and headed for his tractor.

The tractor rumbled, and Spence plowed snow.

On the deck railing or on white willow and white pine branches, birds cued for perch position. While two chickadees pecked, the three goldfinches zoomed to the feeder and landed with a thud.

Crash. The feeder hit the deck.

The goldfinches zoomed across the south garden.

The birds perched on the railing cocked their heads then dove. No learning curve needed to find seeds on the deck this time.

When Spence slipped out of his boots and stood by the wood stove fire, I gave him the bad news. “The feeder crashed again.”

He turned his head, sighed from the bottom of his cold, wet feet, and glared at the empty window. “I see.”

He ventured into the frigid air to hang the feeder―again.

A ten minute slapstick comedy―adjust-press-drop, adjust-press-drop, adjust-press-drop―ensued. Not amused, Spence applied dish detergent then mineral oil. Scowling, he brought the feeder back inside and gave me a report. “Only one suction cup works.” He set the empty feeder on the kitchen counter. “That’s not enough to hold the feeder.”

“We can buy another feeder at Home Depot.”

“No. They aren’t in stock. I’ll try new suction cups.”

He bought a package containing two suction cups―one broken and the other couldn’t be mounted on the feeder. Spence shook his head, cleaned the lubricants off the feeder’s original cups, and trudged across the porch to the deck.

The feeder stuck to the window.

He marched back. “The cups had warmed inside. They worked.” He raised his arms in victory.

This Sunday, with fat snow flakes drifting to the deck and one cat sleeping by the sliding glass door, chickadees, titmice, juncos, cardinals, and goldfinches keep the old feeder as busy as the Pittsburgh airport.

Ready for an air traffic controller job when the male cardinal took a break, I sat in my chair and enjoyed the fluttering show.

Female Northern Cardinal