Songs of a Feather

I don’t remember a winter and early spring when the birds have been as “out of control” in the most wonderful way. Unlike my friend and neighbor Jim, who can name trees and birds with ease, I remain stuck in my mundane knowledge of the feathered many. I certainly know the sound of the mockingbird and cardinal, and the tat-a-tat-tat of the downy woodpecker, all of these prolific here in rural Leon County Texas. I own cherished memories of other sounds from our grandmother’s dairy farm northwest of Houston where killdeer roamed that prairie, of our great Aunt Minnie’s land in Hockley where the trees were alive with pesky, complaining grackels—a sound that somehow still makes me smile of childhood—and of course, crows that hid, then took flight among the towering pines, caw-caw-caw-ing—on  the land where I grew up. It was country then, now it’s part of the great Houston sprawl.

Through the kitchen window I see a pair of mockingbirds careening across and around the garden, low to the ground. Is it a mating ritual? Something else I don’t know about birds. Maybe they are beckoning me to my perceived duty to get into the garden again this morning and continue the work that I’ve promised myself  I will accomplish before leaving here for the summer in another week. Regardless of what I do, however, when the birds have this place to themselves, they won’t care about thistles, nut grass, and all the other green out of place to some, green that is a source of seed and life.

I started cleaning again a few days ago, leaving the product of my efforts lying to dry before moving it to the burn pile out in a cow trap. Work underway this morning, as I forked mounds of dried material into the wheelbarrow, a cardinal flew so close to my face that I could almost feel his breath. He lighted on the leather leaf mahonia, secured a ripened berry in his beak, and then pausing only briefly, popped into the air, probably to enjoy his breakfast in the comfort of a wild pear tree nearby.

I’m raking and hauling, pushing a mower through only those sections of the landscape that are not ripening with the bounty of wildflowers I started broadcasting here a few years ago. Even those areas I am mowing are sprinkled with the color that comes up naturally in this part of the world. From my efforts, the primrose and Indian paintbrush are plentiful, a couple of bluebonnets already come and gone, penstemmon, gallardia ready to burst. Giant sunflowers will dominate here after I am in northern New Mexico. Maybe someone will send me a picture. I have to stop regularly and wipe my sweat-stinging eyes with the sleeves of my t-shirt.

At lunch, I sat in the garden with a sandwich. Singing filled the air, but not a bird could I catch with my camera. An occasional butterfly darted from red to pink, moving too quickly for me. It is a busy time here. We’re all working, some of us sweating more than others. Some of us are busy eating and singing, others dining and filling the air with color, an occasional buzz now and then.

Songs of a Feather—Normangee Texas (April 21, 2008)

R. Harold Hollis