The Nature of Things

My backyard has been an exceptionally quiet and boring place in recent weeks. The garden that for most months of the year is filled with birdsong and bird activity has been mostly deserted by the birds. All of the permanent resident birds of the area, except for the Carolina Chickadees , Downy Woodpeckers , Carolina Wrens , Red-bellied Woodpeckers , and ( sigh ) House Sparrows seem to have totally disappeared. Even the usually ever-present Northern Cardinals and White-winged Doves and the raucous Blue Jays have been absent. This Great Abandonment is an event that happens every year in early fall. I have theorized in the past that it coincides with an abundance of wild food being available so that the birds do not feel the need to visit my feeders. I don't know that to be the case, but it seems reasonable. This year, however, the GA has lasted longer and has been even more complete than in other years, and I am really at a loss to know why. Watching the feeders on Sunday afterno...

The most recent book that I finished reading, just a few days ago, was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt . The MacGuffin of that book is a small painting of a pet European Goldfinch that was painted in 1654 by the Dutch artist Carel Fabritius. It seems coincidental and somehow appropriate then that the stars of my backyard these days are the American Goldfinches that visit us in the late fall and winter. The goldfinches arrived in my yard several weeks ago, around the end of November. As soon as I saw the first ones in the area, I filled my nyger seed feeders and hung them in the backyard. They continued to hang there unutilized until this week. Finally, this week as the extreme cold hit our area along with most of the rest of the country and as the wild food for the birds began to be depleted, the goldfinches have started visiting my feeders. Even though the nyger seed feeders were waiting for them, the first feeders the finches visited were those filled with black oil sunflower seed. Thi...