David
Heiller
My brother-in-law, Randy, and I were playing
catch with a Frisbee on Christmas Day. Actually, we were playing catch with our
dog, MacKenzie.
One of us would throw the Frisbee, and, Mac would race after
it. Sometimes the Frisbee would float slowly over the snow, and the dog would
leap and catch it.
The Frisbee was a gift to Mac from my sister-in-law,
Nancy, who has a big heart with pets. Mackenzie’s acrobatic catches were fun to
watch. They were her way of saying thanks, her gift back to us.
The turkey was on the grill, and the house was filled with
the smell of dressing and sweet potatoes. The sun shined brightly on a
40-degree day, the second warmest Christmas on record, I learned later.
All of a sudden, the trees outside the house were filled
with birds, chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, and grosbeaks. It, was noon,
and they descended on our feeders like it was time for their Christmas dinner.
We always have some birds around our feeder, but this was
like someone had rung a dinner bell. They stayed for about five minutes, long
enough for me to sneak in the house and tell my wife, Cindy.
Evening Grosbeaks |
Cindy is a bird lover too, so she had to get up and tell
me they were evening grosbeaks. I can never keep pine and evening grosbeaks
straight. (Here’s a trick to help: evening grosbeaks are yellow, like the sun
in the evening.)
I don’t know why those birds came in and left like they
did. Some bird expert could tell me, but I don’t really care. Just watching
them made that gorgeous Christmas
day even more beautiful. It was like
a Christmas present from Mother Nature.
WE ALWAYS HAD BIRD FEEDERS when I was
a kid. I don’t think Mom bought much bird feed, because we didn’t have a lot of
money. But any bread crumbs or cracked walnuts or hickory nuts or corn would go
out to the backyard by the big elm trees. Grandma would fill grapefruit skins
with peanut butter or suet and set them
out for a special treat.
Lots of birds came, and all were welcome, except the
sparrow. Grandma was a bird racist. She hated sparrows, which she called “sparrah”
with disgust in her voice.
Once I got a BB gun for Christmas. I snuck up to the
feeder and shot a bird. It was a sparrow, so maybe I justified the killing.
Mostly though, Ι was responding to the instinct to kill that most 11-year-olds
possess.
My sister, Mary Ellen, saw me, and came out and said it
was wrong, unfair, and just plain rotten to shoot birds at feeders, even if it
was a sparrow. She was mad!
Maybe it was a lesson about prejudice. All I know is I
never shot another bird at a bird feeder, and I passed the instructions sternly
on to our 11-year-old son when he got a pellet rifle last year.
My favorite bird was always the cardinal. It’s the
prettiest bird in Minnesota. They would look flashy with their red coats
against the white snow. Someone would holler for us to look whenever a cardinal
landed at the feeder. Unfortunately we are too far north for them, unless you are lucky like Liz
Espointour in Askov, who has three at her feeders these days.
THERE ARE A LOT OF LOGICAL reasons for
feeding birds. You feel good feeding them, helping them survive. They are
fascinating to watch. Each is beautiful in its own way, even the sparrow.
Sorry, Grandma.
But there is a serious side about
bird populations that we need to keep in mind, painful as it is. Laura Erickson
of Duluth writes about it in her book, “For the Birds, An Uncommon Guide.”
This excellent book is written like a
diary. Most days the author tells fascinating tidbits about bird encounters
that she has had. But her December 27 entry is more somber. She writes: “When
we moved to Peabody Street in 1981, our feeders overflowed with birds. This
time of year we had scores of grosbeaks, hundreds of siskins or redpolls,
several chickadee flocks. Twelve years later, squirrels outnumber birds, we’ve
only two chickadee flocks, and the last two winters we’ve had no finches at
all.”
On December 28, she writes: “The destruction of the
rainforest is tragically obvious, but fragmentation of northern breeding
habitats may be equally disastrous...” She goes on about all the forces that
are causing bird populations to dwindle.
There is something you can do to help in this important
fight, besides keeping your feeders filled. Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources has a nongame wildlife program that you can donate to on your
Minnesota tax forms.
Donations are used to help preserve wildlife species that
are not traditionally hunted or harvested, but are in jeopardy because of
habitat loss, illegal killing, or
other environmental threats.
Last year six percent of all taxpayers donated to the
fund. The average donation was $8.14.
Editor's note: Laura's latest book (to my knowledge) The Love Lives of Birds: Courting and Mating Rituals
Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Lives-Birds-Courting-Rituals/dp/1635862752/ref=sr_1_1?crid=31KVIWIQMUE5M&dchild=1&keywords=laura+erickson&qid=1608167788&sprefix=Laura+Eris%2Caps%2C209&sr=8-1
Editor's note: Laura's latest book (to my knowledge) The Love Lives of Birds: Courting and Mating Rituals
Here is the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Lives-Birds-Courting-Rituals/dp/1635862752/ref=sr_1_1?crid=31KVIWIQMUE5M&dchild=1&keywords=laura+erickson&qid=1608167788&sprefix=Laura+Eris%2Caps%2C209&sr=8-1
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