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Prose & Comments: Crunch time by the bird feeder

BY JAMES BORNEMEIER

For a mere handful of dollars, our bird feeder has provided an abundance of avian highjinks. Hanging off a dogwood branch outside the bay window of our place on Shelter Island, it has attracted the neighborhood’s colorful winged contingent and many an hour has been spent watching their antic airborne competition for one of the four small perches where the seed lies for the taking. A regal pair of cardinals is our favorite and the blue jay looks like it weighs five pounds. Tanagers, woodpeckers, finches and many other species arrive throughout the day and grab a perch while the mourning doves are content to work the turf below for the ample strewn kernels.

The feeder was marketed as squirrel-proof and employs a movable screen sheath that slides down over the seed portholes when an interloper weightier than a bird attempts to penetrate the feeder’s bulwark. (The thuggish grackles of summer are too heavy to get at the seed but they have never figured out why and just thrash about in midair.) It took us a while to wise up to the fact that the simple unsecured hook that came with the feeder was wholly inadequate to deter our twitchy band of backyard squirrels. They would simply whack the feeder hard enough to knock it to ground and then roll the feeder across the lawn. The seed poured out for leisurely eating. A length of chain wrapped around the dogwood branch and a spring-loaded hook solved that problem. After months of assaults, they reconciled themselves to peacefully grazing with the doves on the ground.

One day, after consulting the birders’ guide, we identified several rose-breasted grosbeaks, a medium size songbird with (for males) a black hood, red chest and white belly. They became regulars at the feeder. In the middle of summer, lazing about, I heard something (a bird, I instantly knew) hit the kitchen window (a surprisingly small patch of glass, given the bay window nearby) and, sure enough, there on the deck was a lifeless grosbeak, lying on its side with its legs comically sticking straight out, a bit of spittle trailing from his beak.

I was going to dump him (definitely a male) in the woodsy perimeter that borders our lot on two sides. Well, I reconsidered, maybe that’s a bit pitiless. Maybe a quickie burial was more suitable for this fine newcomer to the dogwood tree soup kitchen. I went to get the dustpan in the kitchen to take the fallen bird to the shed and get the shovel for the ceremony.

I came back moments later to see the bird’s eyes open and his chest gently pulsing. I went inside, Googled “injured bird” and learned that leaving injured birds alone (or putting them in a shoe box lined with soft paper) is the preferred treatment option. I definitely was not going to pick this one up because I figured he probably had broken bones and a concussion. And I didn’t want to freak him out. So there I left him, in the shade, on the deck, about a foot from the house, directly below the kitchen window, which I noticed had a small, slightly greasy splotch: the telltale marker of bird meeting glass at high speed. I began my vigil.

Some of the websites said that it could take hours for a bird knocked senseless to recover. And, after an hour, there was progress. The grosbeak was on its feet, utterly motionless, staring at the side of the house at about a 30-degree angle. It was 2:30 p.m. An hour later, same spot, same unwavering stare. A half hour later, it had turned around on the same spot and had pointed itself toward the metal deck chairs, motionless. I imagined something deeply embedded in the grosbeak’s little brain was issuing an urgent alert that the sky above was filled with potential enemies and that gaining the cover of the chair was a necessary survival tactic.

At this point I was thinking maybe it’s time for a little human intervention. But as I slowly reached for him, he flinched ever so slightly so I pulled my hand back and let him pursue his deliberate journey to safety on his own. A half hour later, he was under the chair. During the entire vigil, I never saw him actually move to new positions and after each maneuver he retained his still-as-a-statue bearing. Conserving his rattled resources, I supposed. A half hour later, at first I thought he was gone but then spotted him perched, absurdly motionless of course, on the seat of an adjacent chair. He can fly! Okay, it was only two feet but this was very promising.

A half hour later, he was nowhere to be seen, presumably (as I lapsed into an anthropomorphic idyll) having returned to his mate and other bird pals to relate his amazing day and nurse a whopper of a headache. And that was the last we saw of the grosbeaks. “This place is dangerous,” I imagined them agreeing. “Let’s get out of here.”

James Bornemeier is a New York-based writer.