The Bachelors Have Arrived

The paper calendar is not the only way to mark the passage of landmarks in a year. Today we noted as we gazed on waking that the big maple tree outside our bedroom window (we call our bedroom the tree house) was gamely putting forth healthy new buds on the bare branches. This in the teeth of a Nor'easter surrounding South Jersey and belting us with rain and puffs of strong wind. Winter has not really come in its worst -- it usually hits harder in January -- but these buds are insisting on making preparations for next spring. We will monitor their daily progress as the wakings progress one on another.

We watch, similarly, where on the old wallpaper the sun shines of a morning. Right now it's very low and only glimmers a short time into our window, and then ducks below the neighbor's garage to the south.

Remarking that with this Nor'easter we might see unusual birds blown into the neighborhood, we embarked on our day as usual. I sit at my desk at the front corner of the house and do a bunch of computer work (or play, depending on how you think of it), and keep an eye on the status of the quiet little street we live on. Lots of wet leaves and puddles this morning.

One harbinger we have been looking actively and expectantly for during the past month or so is the arrival of the "Bachelors" , and today, while I was tapping away on the computer, a big swarm of birds gathered on the porch and street-side leaf pile across the street. Yep, they were bobbing, and as I rose from my seat and got a better look at them, they did, indeed, have the red breasts and dapper silhouettes of the Bachelor Robins!

Two winters ago we watched in amazement as a huge flock of these all male young robins gobbled up, in about three day's effort, nearly every one of the red berries on our neighbor's very large holly tree -- a tree that is so tall it matches our big old maple! We did some research to figure out why these robins were not "south" (aren't robins supposed to migrate south for the winter?) and why they were all batched together in such numbers. They were raiding the tree like starlings! A new phenomenon for us.

Last winter we didn't see them, but the holly tree had not really totally recovered from the previous raid. But this fall we noticed that the tree was sporting a huge fresh harvest of red berries, and we wondered to each other whether the Bachelors had gotten wind of it.

Now...today....they are here. I hope they get occupied with our neighbor's tree and leave our newly rescued little female holly alone. As we were clearing out downed trees, I noticed that one large trunk had come down right against a young holly tree in the woods of our new bit of property out back. Once my scientist engineer had cleverly extricated the big dead trunk from around the poor bent holly, I noticed that this one had lovely red berries. It has begun to stand up straighter now that its burden is gone, but it always will be a crooked tree, and we will always love it like a rescued stray. And I will harvest holly tips with red berries from it, and it will enjoy being pruned a little.

So, the day of the Bachelors has arrived, and now we can see what comes next in the natural calendar. I notice that the winter pansies are looking robust, ready to shine above the snow later in the season, and the day lilies are mistakenly poking up green new leaves! That's ok. They will hunker down again, and try again in spring. We do have a lot of hungry little flittery friends at the bird feeder, but our cat is preferring to lie in front of the fire (we call it his TV) to watching the birds today. It's the bottom of the year. In a week, we can start climbing back up along with the sunshine on the wallpaper.

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Small Robin Adventure

Walking the "back forty", usually with my small canine friends in tow, is usually a minor excursion into the wild-- just a meander through the wooded area behind our house. Yesterday morning we were rounding the curve of the foot path when I noticed an anxious fluttering happening near the tarp covering a woodpile back there. I could see immediately that a bird was caught in something and knew the dogs would go wild. So I turned around before they noticed the excitement and hitched them up on the lawn.

Grabbing a nail clipper and a handy pair of shears from inside, I returned to the flapping scene, telling myself to be very calm and reassuring so as not to further panic the bird. A young male robin tangled in a fibrous shred of the blue tarp wrapped around his leg flapped even more as I approached and another bird I had not noticed flew up from the green undergrowth nearby.

I used both hands to cap the terrified bird from above, folding his wings against his body and murmuring softly to him. He quieted and I was able to see how the stringy tarp shreds were wrapped tightly around his right foot. It took a few minutes to carefully clip with the shears close to the scrawny foot to release the fibers. I had to work the stuff loose, cut close, and finally the foot was free. I put the bird down right side up and opened my hand. He flew off fast and that was that.

Later I heard the robins as I worked the back flower garden. Wish I could know what they were saying.

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The Robin Project :

There's a robin's nest in our big holly tree. I have not so much SEEN it as heard it. The parents were really making a big hubbub this morning when I was weeding back there-- and I could hear the reason why. There were small peeping whispers coming from the crook in the tree where the nest is sitting.

Robins like to nest where they can see all around and can fly up and away if necessary. We like them so much we have studied how to build a robin nesting perch so we can watch them nearer the house. Once we get our patio finished we will try to get a family of robins to live near us.

Robins remind me of my father. He brought a little naked creature in from where it had fallen near his lawnmower path. This was sometime in the fifties, I guess, because I remember coming home from a summer job and that little robin would know when I came in the back door. He would answer when I would make a baby robin kind of peep with my tongue against my teeth. Dad had a friend at work who had once brought up a robin and had a cage and other gear. Dad brought it all home and we set up Peety. He got to get out of his cage and hop around the living room when I was there, and used to perch on my shoulder, and ask for a handout. We gave him raw hamburger. He and I got close over the early summer weeks, and then began forays out into the back yard. He would ride on my shoulder and I would set him on low branches so he would "know he was a robin." He could hop off the branch back onto my finger safely enough. But then came the day when he tried to fly. It did not work. He broke his neck! Who knows which of the things I had done to prepare him for robinhood (pun unintended) did him in. Maybe hamburger was wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have put him on a tree branch. Maybe, in fact, he was not a well bird to begin with. But whatever the case I was crushed and grief stricken. He was laid to rest, and the cage was returned to my father's friend.

All of this gets revived in my memory when it comes to robins-- and I count again my good fortune in having a father that thought it was a good idea to do a robin project. Such a lot of learning happened around that project. And my father really knew it would. He was good. Sure he was imperfect, but really really a good father.

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