Sometimes life gives you. . . starlings

european starling © Robinsegg, UT, Salt Lake City, 2008

As a general rule, I do not love invasive species of animals and plants. The European starling was first introduced in North America by Eugene Schieffelin, who aspired to bring the bird species mentioned in William Shakespeare's literary works to the U.S. Environmentalists will sometimes tell some version of this story with such sneering disdain in their voices that I half expect them to punctuate their remarks by spitting on the ground. And I don't disagree with the sentiment; starlings cause stress to native songbird populations with their heavy competition for habitat and resources. They compete with cavity nesting birds such as bluebirds and woodpeckers for naturally occurring cavities in old trees. In addition, they cause crop damage, sanitation problems, and carry diseases. But my intention here is not to go into detail about the environmental impact of starlings. Like it or not, European starlings are thriving in most parts of the U.S., and are a part of our everyday landscape.

Because they form such large, gregarious flocks, starlings can be disruptive and messy. One day this winter, I found our birdbath empty except for a thin layer of sludgy, claw-marked ice in the bottom. I'm pretty sure from watching the unsavory bacchanals in our birdbath over the summer that this was the work of starlings. I admit that it was fun to watch the flock descend, and to see about twenty at a time try to cram themselves into the bath, flinging water everywhere. In our area, robins also flock during the winter, and I've seen the starlings duke it out with them over the bath -- once I saw a robin land belly up on the ground after one of these tussles. My husband, Jeff, has dubbed their bickering "Starling Wars."

On Tuesdays, Jeff and I like to go on an "adventure," which often involves some kind of outdoor activity. Our definition of "adventure" is pretty loose. A couple weeks ago, we had one we're calling "Toilet Tuesday." I'm not going to say much more about this: only that we live in an old-ish house, and there are more "Toilet Tuesdays" in our future. We still managed to fit in a trip to Quiet Waters, a local park, which is closed to cars on Tuesdays. It was very cold last week, so there wasn't a lot of foot or bike traffic, and we had some really lovely birding: lots of flickers and other woodpeckers, a field sparrow sighting, and some great bluebird action. A trip to Quiet Waters almost always guarantees bluebirds, which were not common when I was getting my first birding experience as a little girl, so they are still a thrill to me. Jeff kept his eye on the various woodpeckers across the road as I enjoyed the "thwack" of bluebirds hitting the frozen ground.

I associate these diminutive birds with a kind of dreamy pleasantness; "life is sweet, tender, and complete, when you find the bluebird of happiness,"* so I was surprised by the ungainly thwacking. It clearly looked like hunting behavior; one would perch on a sunny branch, hurl itself abruptly into the grass, root around, then return to its branch. I'm surprised there was any prey stirring in the soil on such a cold day.

This past Tuesday I had just finished working on a project that I had put a lot of time and effort into, but was not comfortable with the results. Unlike most projects, this one was unfixable, and I was struggling to let go, to stop obsessing about it. The day started with a mass of starlings, with a few grackles mixed in, foraging in our yard and visiting the birdbath. As I said, starlings are not considered desirable, but I still find it entertaining to watch them. They can be very handsome birds; in the summer they are iridescent, their black feathers flashing with sheens of purple and green. They have a clean, yellow dagger of a beak, which turns dark in the fall. Their cold weather plumage is not as shiny and colorful, but it is patterned with a dense constellation of speckles.

I tend to associate black birds (starlings associate with, but are not true "blackbirds") with their ominous portrayals in works such as Hitchcock's The Birds, and Poe's "The Raven." The gathering of starlings in our brittle brown grass made for a bleak winter scene. At the same time, there's something a little comical about these sturdy birds' waddling gait, and the sound and sight of them all taking off at once, spooked by threats unobserved by me, is a stirring spectacle. This eerily beautiful ability to move as one has earned the winging starling flock the onomatopoetic name of "murmuration," and has made them the subject of art and viral videos. I noticed as I watched our flock that one had a pure white patch on one wing. I was also treated to a flash of scarlet and yellow when a redwing blackbird took flight in their midst. In the end, I had to tear myself away to get ready to start the day.

murmuration of gretna green starlings by jchip84

Jeff and I went to Quiet Waters again that Tuesday, but saw no bluebirds, and nothing else particularly out of the ordinary. We did, however, find some strange twirly playground equipment that brought fits of laughter that lasted well into the evening, thanks to videos Jeff and I took of each other going for a spin.

I have unlikely little turning points in my life. A couple of autumns ago, I got badly bitten by chiggers as a result of one of my attempts to get some spirit-lifting outdoor time. My hair stands on end just thinking about it. But, by the time I got home that day, scrubbed myself down, and made my way downtown with Jeff for a falafel, I could sense that my mood had shifted. The following Tuesday found us at the beach, so I could soak my fiery blisters in the cool salt balm of the ocean. My improved frame of mind would continue for many weeks, as would, ironically, the itching. My brain gets stuck sometimes, bogged down by fears and doubts, and it takes a little mental earthquake to get things moving again. I never know what will trigger the earthquake.

Since last Tuesday, with its literal turning point on the playground, and its assortment of mundane birds, I've come to see the flock of starlings as a harbinger of lighter times to come. I've since had a cluster of unexpected and satisfying things happen, even in my dreams: small windfalls and triumphs, symbols of growth and abundance. The memory of the starlings lingers, urging me to look at the world and at myself with curiosity rather than judgement; to see comedy within the nuisance; to glimpse the little starry universes contained in dark, dull feathers. Common and silly as a starling, I waddle forward.

*from the song "Bluebird of Happiness" by Sandor Harmati and Edward Heyman

Our Super Bowl Pre-game show: the hermit thrush

My sister asserts that today, Super Bowl Sunday, is the best day of the year for skiing, hiking, eating out, shopping, etc. I am with her -- I would love to spend the day having local parks and trails to myself, but I am married to a football enthusiast. Actually, I'm not sure if "enthusiast" is the right word. Jeff has followed football all his life, typing letters to the "Steel Curtain" era Pittsburg Steelers when he was a little boy. He still has the autographed photos he received in response. But these days, he seems to get his football needs met mostly by watching game highlights online. Occasionally he (or we) will go to a restaurant or bar so that he can watch a game of particular interest to him, since we don't have a television.

I realize I could go do my own thing today, but over the years Jeff and I have developed a tradition of going to Virginia to watch the game, eat junk food, and spend the night with some dear friends of ours. Up until a few years ago, this evening would have included some pretty heavy drinking for me. I've now been sober for three years, and this year for the first time, one of my friends will be joining me in celebrating, as he would say, "Sober Bowl."

I've been able to spend this winter morning the way I like to: in quiet laziness beside the fire, alternately reading the paper and looking out the window at our birdbath, which I knock the ice out of every morning and replenish with warm water. I share my grandmother's love of watching birds in the bath; the messy exuberance of their bathing is a pleasant contrast to their dainty drinking.

There is almost no limit to what a birdbath will attract. A quick google of "birdbath visitor" will reveal photos not only of myriad bird species, but also of cats, deer, raccoons, bears, and foxes. Since last summer, we have seen at our bath: bluebirds, robins, titmice, chickadees, mockingbirds, cardinals, white throated sparrows, blue jays, mourning doves, grackles, starlings, various finches, the list goes on. Recently I've seen new visitors to the bath: cedar waxwings and a hermit thrush. Both are, as my dad once said about waxwings, "beautiful in their quiet way." I learned much of what I know about birds from my father, who died in 2007. He was like those understated birds; a neighbor of ours said not long ago that she missed my father, that he had had a "quiet elegance about him." He was patient and stoic, which made him a wonderful birder, able to be still for long enough to observe their songs and behavior.

White Throated Sparrow, my photo

My father sometimes took me on birding walks in the morning before school. I was something of a budding naturalist, poring over books about insects, geology, plants, and of course, birds, but my brain worked differently than his. I am what I call a "binge learner." While he was calm and resolute, my own mind was like a hummingbird: zooming from one source to another, drinking deeply and greedily, then moving on. Still, repeat this process again and again, and one can acquire a certain amount of knowledge over time. I did manage to learn quite a bit on our walks, and every time I make a new bird discovery, I think of him.

I don't know if the variety of bird species I've seen over the past year or so is the result of birds being displaced by development and seeking refuge in our neighborhood, which is wooded and bordered on two sides by water, or if I'm becoming more observant because of age, or because of sobriety. People in recovery claim that the "fog" continues to lift as the years go by. Maybe it's a combination of these factors. I do know that bluebirds used to be a rarity in our area, and now I see them regularly. Bald eagles are also becoming more populous as they continue to bounce back from the effects of DDT, which was banned in the US in 1972, the year of my birth. Also, in the past couple years, I've been able to apply myself a little more diligently to things I care about, though I still have a "binge" approach toward learning. This spring I spent every morning on the back steps with binoculars and the Roger Tory Peterson bird guide my father gave me some 30 years ago, shivering in the cold, later, sweating in the heat. Eventually I was driven inside by the mosquitos, but during this obsessive time, I was able to identify many species of warblers, some of which I had never seen before. I also saw and heard indigo buntings in our yard. I fixated on listening to and spotting scarlet tanagers so intensely that their raspy song became woven into my morning dreams -- something about tanagers doing yoga?

Thrush song elicits a visceral thrill that stops me in my tracks; the memory of heat; of humid, tangled forests; a sense of yearning. Often described as "flutelike," their melodies echo and spiral through the woods on warm spring and summer days. Their songs contain clean breaks between notes which remind me of a skilled Hawaiian ha'i (falsetto) singer, and end with an otherworldly trill. There's a precision that sounds almost digital, like little R2D2s singing from the treetops. They are related to the American robin, whose song contains mere suggestions of the flute tones of the thrush.

Earlier this week, I noticed a solitary, plump, soft-hued little bird on our birdbath. I grabbed the binoculars and started eagerly noting possible field marks: pink legs, streaked breast, its tail ruddier than the soft brown of its back. The bird flitted over to a wood pile not far from our living room window, then foraged on the ground under our hemlock tree, picking seeds or berries out of the leaf litter. It made its way over to the grass near the birdbath where it sunbathed for a long while, facing directly into the brilliant afternoon light. It was so windy that its feathers stood on end at times, lifted by bitter northwesterly gusts. The maps in the back of the Peterson guide book confirm that hermit thrushes winter much farther north than other thrushes. I have seen this thrush every day since I first noticed it at the birdbath. True to its name, it always shows up alone.

"HermitThrush63" by Albuttlee at English Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HermitThrush63.jpg#mediaviewer/File:HermitThrush63.jpg

Aside from the obvious allure of the hermit thrush's song, I also feel an affinity for the shy nature of this bird. I have hermit-like tendencies myself. I can also sympathize with its apparent hunger for the winter sun. All weekend, I have holed up in front of the fire in preparation for tonight's socializing over the Super Bowl. Jeff, who has developed his own love for birds, as well as an admirable skill for spotting them, has been in his home studio, working on his latest paintings. He missed yesterday's thrush visit, but to my delight, he finally saw it this morning. He dubbed it "the perfect Super Bowl pre-game show." I could not agree more.