Life can stop mid-flight.
I hear it in the middle of my fall garden chores. Thud. I swerve off course in the direction of the sound and find a goldfinch below a window. Lifeless. I hold him in my gloved hand and admire his fall conversion: his bright yellow feathers have turned a subtle olive green. This will help him blend in this winter, but nothing can help him navigate all these windows.
I’d better return him to the place he landed and check back later. He might recover. You never know. One spring a robin hit a garage window and when I came back it was gone. Was it stunned and able to resume flight? Or did a neighborhood cat find it before it could resume its route? I still feel guilty about our outdoor cat, Van Gogh, menacing the bird population for a decade.
So much of human behavior imperils birds, mine included.
Because we wanted a house with lots of light and wanted to feel connected to the outdoors, we found a house with 40 windows. The birds find it too, and when they hit the windows in mid-flight we cringe. I’ve tried all kinds of window decoys, but nothing works 100 percent of the time. I should have considered the birds’ needs in my home search.
Our house was built in 1864, when Abraham Lincoln was president. I wonder how many birds have hit these windows since Lincoln was in office.
After one of the many heavy rains last summer, I came upon a flock of goldfinches bathing in a large puddle. A single goldfinch is a wonder – the flock (called a “charm”) was dazzling as the birds darted and flitted everywhere.
I remember the words of a childhood bully – Karen Johnson – who called me “birdbrain.” The more I learn about the intelligence of birds, the more I realize that this was a compliment. Thank you, Karen Johnson, wherever you are.
A poem comes to mind: it was about a deer at the edge of a road – a swerve, a collision. The last line of the poem, “I thought hard for us all – my only swerving – ”
Life can stop with a thud.
I check back and the goldfinch is being ferried by Charon over the River Styx to the bird underworld. I bury him under the Joe Pye Weed swaying in the autumn light. “My only swerving.”
Traveling through the Dark
by William E. Stafford
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.