I’m referring to my first visitors in the morning and my last visitors in the evening. Cast to a predominance of relative gloom, ever since autumn—when time fell back—I’ve only had the chance to watch them eat dinner on Saturdays, Sundays, and on the three weekday holidays that just passed. One might think that should have been enough, and maybe it was enough: just enough, because it seems that maybe, perhaps, hopefully we’ve made it through the worst of times.
Nonetheless,it pains me to come home from work in the dark and find their particular feeder empty, and I agonize over taking their particular feeder down before going to work in lieu of letting the squirrels eat it all up by noon. Pretty soon, however, I’ll be able to fill that feeder back up or hang that feeder back up before they fly in for that daily last meal.
Their
Particular Feeder
It’s not that I don’t enjoy experiencing them.., …watching them… …do breakfast. I most certainly do enjoy it, and always will. As a matter of fact, I’ve been setting my clock for six-thirty AM on weekends in order to be there when they come.
Every morning, as soon as the sky starts to slightly brighten, they noisily start trickling in. This has been so ever since I first started strategically placing small piles of bird food on my second floor back patio deck.** Since those years-ago days, there have been very, very few occasions when breakfast hasn’t been there for them. Granted, they make that little ticking sound*** whether the food is out there or not—and admittedly, I don’t really know what they are saying with those closed-beak**** morning tweets—but I choose to believe that they are expressing joy when food is there and disconsolation when it is not. Consequently, I feel so heart-wrenched listening to them when food is not there that, since my early September move to my current home, I have made absolutely sure that their favorite fare is available to them every single morning.
Looking out the window, toward that feeder and their pre-dawn vocalizations, initially and despite the faint glow of my porch light, I can’t see the sources. I know who they are, though. I recognize—not so much their voices—but their language. Sometimes, shortly after my best friends arrive, I hear the voices of welcomed interlopers, but the darkness doesn’t render them incognito. Mockingbirds don’t always mock. Sometimes they just be themselves, and squawk. Male Carolina Wrens try to fit in by attempting unseasonable replications my best friends’ spring and summer proclamation riffs. They don’t come close, however, because their voices are way too melodious to confuse them with the rock ‘n roll cords of my best friends. Then there’s the male Song Sparrow who can’t resist a higher-decibel chorus. When he first does it, it seems as though everyone stops and looks in his direction for a moment, quickly sizes it up as cool, and resumes the song.
Inevitably, a few minutes later, I’m able to see silhouettes flittering and fluttering about the miniscule glints reflecting off that feeder; and, naturally, after a few more minutes, I become able to see hints of color.
Subsequently, the sun—whether the sky is overcast or not—starts to ascend above the eastern horizon, and I can then clearly see them: albeit still too dim to get good pictures insomuch as my best friends are to the west and the structure of my home is situated between them and the direct morning sunlight. Due to the obstruction, the only good pictures that I can take are taken with my eyes, and then are stored in the cluttered, unkempt, and virtually unsharable memory of my brain.
Thus, I cannot show how much I thoroughly enjoy experiencing my best friends’ morning arrival, cannot depict how much I thoroughly enjoy my brief workday morning minutes of being able to catch glimpses of them eating breakfast, but so far, it pales in comparison with watching them eat dinner. The sight, the sound, the mood… …emits, conveys, and exudes a more profound aura of accord.
Keeping in mind that the context is very late summer, autumn, and early winter in Louisville, Kentucky, dinner starts as soon as the sun completely descends below the western horizon. After all of the other birds have called it a day, my best friends start to arrive one at a time although closely followed by a mate and, in a couple of cases, offspring. They swoop in directly toward the feeder, save for their instinctual altitudinal undulations. It’s often a brave female who comes first, takes a seed to show that all is well, and then quickly defers, moves away from the feeder to accommodate her mate.
Soon, another one flies in. Moments later, in comes another, and another, and another. One evening, in early October, my field of vision allowed me to count eleven of them: among them were two juvenile females and one juvenile male. Eleven of my best friends—in the same place, at the same time, and not fighting—made for quite the sight to behold.
Generally, the males eat first and rather peacefully work out which of them eats first, second, third, and last; and only a particular male’s mate is deigned to eat on the other side of the feeder at the same time. The young ones disregard the feeder altogether, content with foraging through the grass beneath the feeder for spillage. Adults not at the feeder occasionally join the young ones on the ground, but more often than not, they simply perch a limb in the tree and wait their turn.
The atmosphere is reminiscent of humans conducting themselves appropriately in a fine dining establishment. The exception being such that—with well-mannered humans having dinner in a ritzy restaurant—one would expect to hear the low murmur of quiet voices, the occasional clink of a glass, or the faint sounds of forks coming in gentle contact with plates; but such is not the case with my best friends.
When the cardinals eat dinner, they do it silently: not making a sound.
References
*December 29, 2012
http://www.photoshop.com/users/mitchelle_levone_wright/albums/3dad5bef909942c9978b19841c7a0740
**
ever since I first started strategically
placing small piles of bird food on my second floor back patio deck.
***little ticking sound
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Cardinal/sounds
****closed beak
Regarding frequency range it seems that a
closed beak filters frequencies above 6 kHz whereas a wide beak gape emphasizes
high frequencies above 5 kHz and over a broader frequency range.http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0011923
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