Of titmice and friends
Coming into change
“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
― L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
The last two afternoons, the wind made itself known the way it does when something meaningful is in the offing: a clearing, a storm, the curtain at the close of a seasonal show. Officially, fall started weeks ago, but where I am the tree canopies still swim like schools of green mackerel.
Early changes are subtle: the slowed growth of okra pods still determined to reach maturity in my garden, and how, after months of pointing elsewhere, the mid-morning light again bends through the sun-catcher in the kitchen window, winging spectral colors around the room.
Now, autumn makes herself fully known, ushering vivacity from her summer seat. Dove-colored clouds camisole the sky, bringing leaves into sharper focus, and I suddenly see the amber-copper constellations of senescence.
What I appreciate most about the warm days I’m about to lose is what I miss terribly in the cold ones: fresh food. The bounty that comes with farmers to market, or emerges from my small plots of earth, astonishes and delights me anew every year. I put by as much abundance as I can make time for, freezing jars of pasta sauce and bags of greens, dehydrating watermelon and cherry tomatoes, filling baskets with tulsi, holy basil leaves that, when dry, will transform boiling water into tea, an elixir for my body as the sun’s intensity goes on walkabout.
Despite what I have to give up, my spirit craves the down time, the delicious slowing, the terrestrial exhale when the natural world reclines and I am called in.
As the days shorten, I also notice changes in the beaks dipping into the collection of water-holding vessels I’ve repurposed into birdbaths in the backyard. The Bluebirds and Cardinals, continuing their daily rituals, are now joined by Tufted Titmice and Black-Capped Chickadees, species I see there only fleetingly in summer. Robins, more numerous these days, or at least more concentrated, take over all the dishes at once, while the Carolina Wren bounces from table to chair in territorial frustration.
It’s hard work being a songbird, harder now than ever, and the coming winter hardest of all. Unlike mammals, birds can’t rest. They spend their days in search of sufficient fuel to support their calorie-intensive flying and to keep them warm through the night.
I do my part to help these friends, scattering black oil sunflower seeds and mealworms. Maybe this year I’ll find a way to engineer a feeder system that both deters squirrels and dissuades the neighboring cat, who makes regular visits to my yard. In my flower beds, I’ll leave in place the unseemly seed heads of spent plants and the dead leaves that nestle around them. Even if my small offerings provide only slight sustenance, it turns out that by doing nothing I’m doing something, and that feels good.
The birds at the baths are different not because they’ve arrived on the winds of the new season but because they’re now congregating, something they do this time of year when leaf-cover diminishes making them especially vulnerable to predators. By coming together, they gain an edge, with more eyes and ears on watch at the same time.
After months of believing we were too busy to make the time, a soul sister and I recently managed to get together. We walked along a new trail, chattering about work, the weather, the way a single pink rose danced from the end of a sun-starved plant. We mapped our route and giggled, on reflection, at how much it looked like breasts.
A few days before that, a conversation in another group took an unexpected turn toward disinformation and the conspiracy theories associated with hurricane relief efforts in North Carolina. Several of us were quick to pile on, countering and correcting, our tone firm, our dissent abrupt. Only later did we recognize that, in our effort to protect our positions, we’d pounced on a member of our own community, missing the predator itself.
Sap settling, leaves surrendering, I’ve always thought of fall as a time to go quiet, to release what no longer serves, to undo. This year, another message tugs at my instincts, a kind of renewal more necessary now than ever: Let’s look after each other, eh?
~Elizabeth
Friends, I hope you know how much your interactions here mean to me. I’m eager to learn what you’re learning right now. Our Aussie readers are coming into spring as many of us move toward fall. What does the change of season bring you? Have you landed on ways to support your human and non-human communities? Let’s chat in the comments. I am honored and enchanted that you’ve chosen to spend some time here today.
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I saw a flock of grackles dropping into my yard, fleeing into the trees, and dropping back onto the ground like the leaves falling from the oak trees. I think it's not quite a murmuration, but something akin to it. It's a magical thing as they rise and fall, and swoop and flee together. Until you said it, it didn't occur to me that they do that at least partly out of community safety. Interestingly, there son't seem to be red grackles or blue grackles. They seem to have agreed on their way of being in the world. I wonder if there are dissenters in their community? But I suppose there are communities of robins or blue jays which move in different directions. Somehow all the communities seem to be able to coexist without much more than some periodic squawking. I would like to come up with some profound insight to apply that to our human communities. Someday, maybe.
As you lose your variety of fresh foods, I’m in Australia just seeing the first of the new season’s treasures. Fresh asparagus has just come in. Yay! It has become such a joy to plan recipes as new items appear at our local farmer’s market.
And oh yes in relation to reacting to comments by friends that don’t fit with our own view of the world. It is so hard to find just the right level of response that allows them to feel heard but still able to discuss the possibilities around what they’ve read. There’s so much misinformation these days and it’s so easy to spout something you’ve read but not thought through yet. A friend can so easily remind you of aspects you believe in that don’t fit with this new ‘story’. So complex.
Take care. And thanks.