Baby Bird Day To You

A pair of tiny, Anna’s Hummingbird nestmates look out across the forested ravine where they were born, taking in warm patches of reflected sunrise and the songs of American Robins, Wilson’s Warblers, Black-throated Gray Warblers, Juncos, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Spotted Towhees, Song Sparrows, House Finches, Goldfinches, a Western Tanager, a couple of Black-headed Grosbeaks, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Golden-crowned Kinglets, a Purple Finch, Brown Creepers, a couple of distant crows and three or four Swainson’s Thrushes.

My guess is that these little flyers’ (below), first flights happened this very morning, and probably not more than an hour or two before these photographs were made. Dawn had arrived no more than three hours prior, and though joyous and profoundly unafraid, these delighted little feather poems were still such unsteady fliers and needed a nap and a feeding or two between each short, fluttery jaunt. Everything seemed utterly new to them, a wondrous little miracle unfolding right before my grateful eyes.

I happened into this whole joyous affair deep in the woods, red cedars and hemlocks, Doug firs, and big-leaf maples, and lacy, bracken and leathery-leafed sword ferns, and mossy tree trunks with Licorice Ferns just beginning to brown and go summer-dormant. A call and response of spiraling, Swainson’s Thrush songs floating upward through the leafy cathedral, a Downy woodpecker chuckle from across the ravine and two Stellar’s Jays scolding someone, well up the hill behind me.

Then, from just ahead and below, the high-pitched chittering of one and then another, and then another, until an entire family of fledgling bushtits, their parents and a couple of helper aunties and uncles flitted sporadically up through the brush and ferns below the trail and set up an ad-hoc feed and fly workshop all around me. Like Alice, I had somehow tumbled down a rabbit hole and found myself smack-dab in the middle of Wonderland.

For a while I stood …as motionless as possible so as not to scare these delightful little acrobats away, but my back and legs grew weary on that sloping, off-kilter trail and eventually I lowered myself to a kneeling and then, sitting position, both for the relief and to make myself seem less ominous, which to baby birds who have not yet learned to fear, meant absolutely nothing. They simply were not afraid of me and flitted in to alight, comically on branches less than a meter away from me at least three times.

And so it went.

And of course, I tarried and chuckled, and let their antics and efforts wash me clean, my fretfulness and grudgery. Gone.

Either Momma or Auntie flies in to one of the littles with a mouthful of tasty, squishy little bugs and caterpillars, then promptly deposits them in an open fledgling gawp. But the little one is not yet all that proficient at licking the peanut butter off the spoon (or in this case, clamping down on that last green larvae. So it comes away when the adult pulls away. And then a squawk, and a wail, and another try.) So many skills to master, such joyous, plastic, quick to learn minds. I am ever in awe.

PS: for those of you who garden and haven’t yet made peace with a pesticide-free approach, here’s a gentle reminder of two things… Nearly every little birdy grows feathers and muscles and brain cells and bone because he/she is fed insects. And mercy sakes, it takes a ‘shit-ton’ of them (technical term, if you’ll pardon my French), to raise just one little bird. So why not let them eat the bugs you’re considering needing to poison, instead of poisoning them.

I made a deal with the birds in my garden decades ago. “I won’t poison your food supply and you are welcome to eat as many of the thrips, leaf-hoppers, moths, cutworms, white-flies and aphids as your heart desires.” It has been one of the best deals I’ve ever made. I have a family of bushtits who come through my garden, usually twice a day and clean my roses and other plants of aphids and white-flies and who knows what all. Chickadees too. And sparrows and hummers, and Bewick’s Wrens, with their long, probing bills and liquid songs, and…

Honestly, I haven’t had any serious bug infestations in years. Haven’t needed to spray a thing. That’s what I call a win-win.

Look close. See that little white-fly on this fledgling’s beak? Bird food for babies. Please, don’t poison the songbirds in your garden by poisoning the bugs you fear or simply dislike. They are such perfect pest control partners. Add a water fountain or bird bath to the mix, or both and you are now part of a team. You have community in a new and very fulfilling way. The way I look at it, if I don’t have bugs chewing notches and holes in the leaves and flowers in my garden, then I don’t have a healthy garden. Plants are what they build or line their nests with, and often what they eat. Who wants a garden of perfect, untouched leaves and no bugs, and hence no birds? As a garden photographer for many years, I’ve visited enough beautiful gardens that have few insects, few birds and almost no sense of humming life.

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