Anyway, I came up with 30 species, and here they are: black-capped chickadee, crow, raven, house finch, lesser goldfinch, American goldfinch, house sparrow, Lincoln sparrow, song sparrow, nuthatch, Harris's woodpecker, Downy woodpecker, lazuli bunting, blue grosbeak, evening grosbeak, black-headed grosbeak, stellar's jay, grey jay, pine siskin, oriole, brown thrasher, green-tailed towhee, black-headed junco, summer tanager, yellow warbler, cedar waxwing, magpie, robin, red-tailed hawk, and Canada geese.
Of this last bird, the Canadian goose, Amish farmer and writer David Kline writes in his book Great Possessions, "Canada geese, like us, can hardly wait for spring. Unlike most other migrants who wait until the weather warms and then travel north rapidly, geese return with the opening of the water. Since spring moves north around 15 miles a day, the northward movement of geese might be considered a slow migration."
Indeed. Leisurely, you might say. I have heard a pair honking in a low flyover every morning now for months. I don't know where they sleep at night, but just before sunrise, they're headed east--right toward the Arkansas River, which runs just a couple miles from my house. How long they'll stay is anybody's guess.
I like to think of migration as a kind of bird wanderlust. A few years ago, I was seized by just such a thing when I thought I had to move back to Texas. I wrote a poem about it, called "Migration," which I'll share here, and then close with a comment.
Migration
This damned Zugunruhe*, this urge to set my face
Toward some distant land, one I will inhabit again--
Like the doves my father kept when I was a child--
It must be true! I have stored fat for the journey,
A cache of fuel and burden, function and density
To propel me with its own downhill momentum.
I hope as I go I will lighten this load of me.
Before I leave, I watch the colorful cacophony
Of birds in my front yard who’ve just arrived:
The orioles in their dapper orange, white and black,
The Lincoln and white-crowned sparrows dressed in
Diminutive prairie suits of gray and brown,
And the startling, chattering, chortling goldfinches,
Who, like me, never seem to settle down.
And now, it is my turn to go.
Diurnal, I ride the rising current of hope,
The goodwill of friends, then glide slowly
Over my parched and receding present until
The next buoyant bubble catches me and lifts
My soaring soul away from the shimmering
Blue and brown, gray and green.
And thus, I will arrive to where I’ve been.
Nocturnal now, I glide down the dark corridor
Of cooling air, lit faintly by moon and stars;
I need not look up to read their courses.
My body heat trails behind me, a comet,
The long ribbon of highway ahead and behind.
In the quiet wonder I think, imagine, and worry
About all there is, or could be, or might not be.
Or perhaps what I feel is just old biology,
Pulled on by indelible urges known since the
Dawn of time--hunger, mating (It would be nice!)
Or death--to land myself on some other shore
After navigating seas, and seas, and seas.
Lucky and beleaguered, I’ll ease myself down,
Tired and thin, and deserve whatever I get.
Why do we give up our hard-won territory?
Can it really be just to eat, to die, or take a wife?
This is the question of any hour, of any life.
We fly madly on though we know the way,
Bodies aligned like iron filings to a magnet,
Eyes fixed on some point far beyond our vision,
Our bird-souls alighting ahead, calling us to follow.
This damned Zugunruhe*, this urge to set my face
Toward some distant land, one I will inhabit again--
Like the doves my father kept when I was a child--
It must be true! I have stored fat for the journey,
A cache of fuel and burden, function and density
To propel me with its own downhill momentum.
I hope as I go I will lighten this load of me.
Before I leave, I watch the colorful cacophony
Of birds in my front yard who’ve just arrived:
The orioles in their dapper orange, white and black,
The Lincoln and white-crowned sparrows dressed in
Diminutive prairie suits of gray and brown,
And the startling, chattering, chortling goldfinches,
Who, like me, never seem to settle down.
And now, it is my turn to go.
Diurnal, I ride the rising current of hope,
The goodwill of friends, then glide slowly
Over my parched and receding present until
The next buoyant bubble catches me and lifts
My soaring soul away from the shimmering
Blue and brown, gray and green.
And thus, I will arrive to where I’ve been.
Nocturnal now, I glide down the dark corridor
Of cooling air, lit faintly by moon and stars;
I need not look up to read their courses.
My body heat trails behind me, a comet,
The long ribbon of highway ahead and behind.
In the quiet wonder I think, imagine, and worry
About all there is, or could be, or might not be.
Or perhaps what I feel is just old biology,
Pulled on by indelible urges known since the
Dawn of time--hunger, mating (It would be nice!)
Or death--to land myself on some other shore
After navigating seas, and seas, and seas.
Lucky and beleaguered, I’ll ease myself down,
Tired and thin, and deserve whatever I get.
Why do we give up our hard-won territory?
Can it really be just to eat, to die, or take a wife?
This is the question of any hour, of any life.
We fly madly on though we know the way,
Bodies aligned like iron filings to a magnet,
Eyes fixed on some point far beyond our vision,
Our bird-souls alighting ahead, calling us to follow.
-----
*Migratory restlessness often seen in caged birds.
*Migratory restlessness often seen in caged birds.
Of all the animals there are to watch, birds are by far my favorite. And spring is by far the best time to do it. The leaves are not yet fully on the trees here in central Colorado--though, as Kline notes, every day another 15 miles green up and obscure these magnificent creatures. Soon, all you'll have is sound.
