A Walker in the Suburbs

I had to look closely because its hue wasn’t as pink as I thought it would be. But I definitely saw a flamingo on the beach yesterday. It was hanging out with ten egrets (I counted them), feeding in a tidal lake that appeared last year and has grown bigger since then. The birds seemed on good terms with each other.

The egrets raised their elegant heads, struck a perfect profile shot, as the flamingo tried to blend in. I’m not really pink, he seemed to be saying. I’m just one of the gang.

As I mentioned in another beach posting, mockingbirds are actually the state birds of Florida, though flamingos are more closely identified with the state.

I wish I’d been able to snap a shot of the flamingo itself, but I often walk the beach without a phone or camera. I’ll have to content myself with this lone egret I spied later in the day. He’s obviously a bird on a mission. Perhaps he’s looking for another flamingo.

In yesterday’s post I mention hearing a wood thrush. I mentioned it as if it were part of an ordinary day. But in truth, it wasn’t ordinary at all.

I’ve heard this song a few times before, but only deep in the woods. I’ve never known what bird was singing, but figured it was a shy creature that didn’t like to show itself. Its trilling song has a touch of the fairy tale about it. It makes me imagine I’ll soon happen upon a cottage made of gingerbread.

When I heard the song again on Sunday I tried to find its source. A rustling in the leaf litter drew my eyes to a brown bird with a white breast darting along the length of a decaying tree trunk.

I have no idea why I thought then that it was a wood thrush. I couldn’t get close enough to see the spots on its breast, and I have no app on my phone that identifies its call. Maybe I’d read somewhere of its sweet song and reticent ways.

Whatever the case, when I had time Sunday evening I searched “wood thrush song” on my computer and heard this. It was the same melody that had caught my attention hours earlier. It sounded like the very soul of the forest. And now, through a lucky guess, I could identify it.

(Photo courtesy of the National Zoo)

The hawk looks contemplative here, as if he’s pondering the world and his place in it. But in truth he’s looking for dinner. He’s watching his prey … like a hawk.

He showed up several times last night as we supped on the deck, making me wonder for a moment if he was sizing us up, too, but realized we were too big and tough.

The raptor was here a couple of nights ago, also, perching on the deck railing and on top of the rain gauge, as he does here. I imagine he’s keeping his eye on the bird feeder. There’s a resident chipmunk this summer, too — or at least there was.

Whenever I see hawks now, I think of the close encounter I had with one a couple of years ago, how the parakeets barely escaped his talons, how they might have perished had I not been there. The parakeets stay inside now. The world is too wild for them.

But not too wild for me. How privileged we were last evening to spend long minutes gazing at this guy.

Hummingbirds typically reappear in these parts around the end of April. Often on April 28th. Which is not to say that you can set your calendar by them, but close.

This year, feeders have been in place for more than a week, installed during one of the hot days in this on-again, off-again spring. But I’ve yet to see one of the early arrivals, the so-called scouts, male birds who fly into an area a week or two before the females to search for food.

I look at the feeders, notice that one has lower levels of nectar than the other. Maybe I’ve missed a few birds, but I doubt it. Just to be sure, though, I’m writing this post from the deck.

We are flush with cardinals here in my corner of Virginia, but the male at the feeder yesterday was one of the most vibrant I’ve ever seen. He practically glowed.

I did a little research, and sure enough, male cardinals are at their most vivid in late winter and early spring. Diet determines color, and females want a partner with a seed stash. The redder, the better.

You might wonder how such an outlandishly bright bird manages to be one of the longest lived, up to 15 years old in some cases. Male cardinals certainly aren’t hiding from predators.

The answer, according to the Cornell Bird Lab, is that cardinals avoid the stress of migration, and staying put gives them a longer breeding season. They are “habitat generalists” who can nest in a variety of locations, and the females of the species are far less conspicuous than their mates. They camouflage themselves in tangled shrubs (of which we have plenty).

It’s easy to be ho-hum about cardinals, given how many we have. But their springtime brilliance reminds me how lucky we are to have them in our midst.

(I snapped this photo during a late-winter snowstorm several years ago. This fellow was already an eye-popping scarlet.)

The small birds of winter are much on my mind, the sparrows and chickadees and downy woodpeckers, in part because it is winter and in part because a new suet block has them flocking to the deck.

The large birds of winter have found their way here, too. Which drives the small birds away. If you’re looking for an avian party-killer, just invite a hawk to lunch.

This robust fellow showed up yesterday, as I was munching on a salad. I knew he was looking for the meat-eater’s special so I kept my eye on him as I finished my greens.

The hawk was seeking prey, of course, watching the small birds like a … well, like a hawk. But he wasn’t the only one laser-focused yesterday. While he was watching the small birds, I was watching him.

In 2024, September 19th was the last day we spotted hummingbirds at the feeder. But so far this morning I’ve seen no sign of the tiny birds. We had two days of rain, which may have chased them off, or maybe they were following that mysterious call that sends them from suburban backyards to tropical rainforests.

They fly hundreds of miles, winging their way south over the Gulf of Mexico to their winter home in Central America. The calories they consume will help them make that journey.

On Tuesday, before the rains came, a hummingbird left the feeder and hovered right in front of me. Birds have done this before, almost buzzed me. They seem to be checking me out — or maybe they’re thanking me and saying goodbye.

I answer them in a soft voice, as I do to the parakeets inside. “You’re welcome,” I say. “Please come again next year.”

Hummingbirds were scarce early this summer. They showed up in late April, as usual — a scouting mission? — then vanished for weeks, lured by more tempting feeding troughs or blocked by the rain. But lately they’ve returned, sipping homemade nectar and supping on potted petunias.

Hummingbirds are my summertime companions — not exactly my spirit animal, but close. Their speed and hustle are the soul of the season. They live with abandon. They zoom, they dive. They perch ever so lightly on the thinnest of climbing rose twigs.

Sitting here, mired in words, I long to break free as they do. Romanticizing them? Of course. Their life is no picnic; it’s an ongoing quest for food and safety. But their presence is a balm to me. They remind me to live in the moment, to live free.

The parakeets have moved to a new room of the house, what I think of as the morning room. It’s full of sunshine at this time of the day and the rays are enlivening the birdies, who are flapping and fluttering around their aviary cage.

Soon they catch their breath and perch side by side, looking out the window. What do they see? Not just the grass and trees and raggedy azaleas that I glimpse. It’s a landscape pulsing with colors invisible to the human eye; they can perceive ultraviolet light, too.

Having them here, in this room and this house, is a constant reminder of the “immense world” we inhabit, a term I borrow from a book by Ed Yong. It’s a book I’ve read recently and am only mentioning in this post — I hope to explore it more fully in another.

For now, suffice it to say that the parakeets sense their own slice of reality just as we humans sense ours. Having a better idea of theirs makes mine that much richer.