Why won’t they just stay?! April 9, 2008
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, homesteading, Uncategorized.Tags: backyard bird watching, birds, Project FeederWatch, spring migration
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It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame. I was just looking out the window of my Pennsylvania home and enjoying the sight of a little flock of juncos at my feeder. Dark-eyed juncos are also known as “snow birds” because they appear at feeders in the winter and have white bellies, which seem to disappear in snowy landscapes, leaving only their slate-colored backs and wings, and their beautiful grey-black eyes and beaks, visible against the snow.
Spring is bittersweet to me as a bird lover, because it brings the return of robins and grackles, but signals the departure of my adored juncos and snow geese, as they take wing for their far north breeding grounds, abandoning me until next autumn brings them down again in search of food and more temperate wintering grounds.
I confess, I’d trade a lifetime of robins just to have my juncos here year ’round. I’m not a fanatic collector like our friend Ben, but I did save up and buy one first-edition (the quarto, not the huge Elephant Folio, no room or funds for that) Audubon print of the darling little juncos, called “common snow bird” on the print, though they’re anything but “common” to me.
Like us, backyard birds are adaptable and peripatetic. We both enjoy stretching our boundaries. As a result, cardinals and mockingbirds, once residents of the South, now delight us Pennsylvanians year-round. But my beloved juncos have, so far, insisted on heading off to the boreal forests of the Far North to court and raise their young. Any day now, I expect to see the last junco depart for its breeding grounds, but so far, a small group of males has remained faithful. Oh please, oh please, I think each day as I fill my feeders, won’t you stay?
Not likely. If you enjoy feeding birds and want to know more about them, I recommend the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site on our blogroll. But you can also get a lot of great information on backyard feeder birds from a book, Birds at Your Feeder by Erica H. Dunn and Diane L. Tessaglia-Hymes. It’s a summary of Project FeederWatch findings by species, and I’ve found it invaluable as I try to entice more birds to my backyard. Yes, ruby-throated hummingbirds, purple martins, bluebirds, and goldfinches are delightful. But I have just one plea.
Juncos, please: Won’t you stay this year?!
Juncos are fine, it’s nice to have two birds at the feeder in winter (them along with cardinals–oh, blue jays too). But I do like seeing the sparrows, house finshes, yellow finches, and whatever else comes my way, all like the many plants omcing up soon to be snowed on tomorrow night. And the singing of birds outside is now a true symphony, confunded by the brash rap of the croaking pond a few hundred feet away. Juncos will return, just as they go, over and over like a long slow breath meditatively absorbing the glory and wonder of the world.
Thanks for that poetic thought, Benjamin! I feel better now. But I’m sorry about your snow!
I’m thinking that the Junco’s absence make them far sweeter when they return for you ? .. they are such pretty birds .. we don’t seem to have many at our feeders .. but perhaps they aren’t that fussy about Kingston ? LOL
Goldfinches fascinate us and we always get a kick out of seeing them in our garden .. they seem to know they are a prised possession here for us .. we have our regular Morning Doves which we love too .. a whole host of native finches ? .. they do a great job in the garden for me with the bug situation .. I love them for that !
What would we do without our birds ?
Joy : 0
You’re so right, Joy! I actually love them all (except starlings–my poor car!!!). Thay make gardening even more fun and beautiful!
I feel the same way…I dread it when the juncos leave in the spring. I love their little white bellies. But my absolute favorite backyard bird is the lowly, common, but unfailingly friendly chickadee.
I love chickadees, too, Caroline! They’re the boldest birds in my yard (at least until the hummingbirds arrive), flying to my feeders even as I’m refilling them. Nothing intimidates them! I read that they’re very easy to hand-tame, but I can’t bear to do it; I’d rather enjoy them just as they are. This was a wonderful chickadee year for us; a very large flock arrived at Hawk’s Haven at the end of summer, and more just kept coming. Their close relations, the tufted titmice, are favorites, too.