Grounded

Homestead Chronicles

Summer has just barely arrived here on the mountain and I spent the long, cold spring out on the land and it felt good to be squarely back in my body. There is always so much physical work to do after the snow melts and I am happy to do it. I work the thawing earth with my hands, start seeds inside and spend many of my available hours watching for insects and small rodent activity to know when, and if, it’s time to clean up the garden. I leave the garden an absolute mess in the fall, I clear away nothing, disturb nothing. I leave the dead heads of brittle sunflowers hanging for the birds and I let the bare and withering annual plants simply rot in place. Because of the mess, spring is a careful but luxurious tip-toe around the garden where I contemplate the cleaning and clearing of things months before I actually do it. I want to give all the little bugs and critters ample time to complete their life cycles and I protect and honor their hidden holes and secret places among the dead vegetation. There is much that is sacred in the rotting things and I wait until the last moments of spring to begin tearing down their homes to build new ones.

Spring also means more walks and hikes. I walk the melted snow soaked and rain lush lands more than once a day, often up to 3 times a day, venturing out further than I have been able to in months. I love seeing the landscape change from the barrens of winter to an emergent emerald, love watching the native bees wake up, and listening to the Raven’s call as food becomes more plentiful. Spring is also the season of new game trails to follow and they appear almost overnight as the deer and bear begin to move again on their quests for fresh forage. I listen to the frogs as the vernal pools ebb and flow with snow melt and rain fall. The skunks move freely and are out digging for grubs all night long and I find their dens easily now. In the very early morning I can smell the acrid sweetness emanating from the underside of a rotten log or fallen tree.

These are some of the ways I tell time.

Spring also always brings us fresh batch of wild birds that migrate in. We have the Juncos all winter, those mischievous little rascals! And when they leave, the feeders sit empty for all of a week before the new arrivals come in hungry. The Red Wing Blackbirds come first. Then quickly come Tanagers, Towhees, Barn Swallows and various finches of all sizes like Pine Siskins, Goldfinches and Evening Grosbeaks. There are also other birds, whose names I do not yet know. The spring arrival of birds is a raucous occasion and it is often my first signal to begin a bit of spring cleaning. When the migratory birds start showing up it’s still often quite cold, but it signals a shift. From here on out, the overnight freezes will be less intense and more sporadic.

When you live in the woods and by the season, eventually the naturalist within begins to emerge. It happens each and every time you find some random thing to become obsessed with. Sometimes it’s an animal or a plant or it could be a specific type of soil or rock, but the outcome is the same. Over the years a person is likely to gain a body of knowledge that can’t be obtained through a casual visit or a passing observation. it’s not a magic trick, it’s just living in place for long enough.

And this is how it went for me (over the last two springs) with Evening Grosbeaks because last spring (2024) there appeared one day, from the non specific ranks of wild and colorful birds, a little hop along friend, a bird who could not fly. I had seen this kind of bird before, they had been visiting for years, but I had never the time or reason to look them up. Now suddenly, I had cause.

The Evening Grosbeaks are funny looking birds and their giant beaks and bulky bodies seem out of proportion with their tail feathers and head size. Their colors are striking: bright yellow, black and white and there is some grandeur there that makes up for the their large beak silliness. They always look a bit grumpy too, like they haven’t slept quite enough, but they are beautiful and proud. They don’t make eye contact like the Pine Siskins, who awkwardly stare directly into my eyes as they rip and tear at my beet greens. No, the Grosbeaks prefer a side eye and a puffed up chest, perhaps to show off the silhouette of those ridiculous, I mean magnificent, beaks that manifest a mighty ‘crack-crack’ on a sunflower seed and a crisp clear call that carries no song.

Try as he might this little hop-along Grosbeak could not fly. Some injury had occurred and though he was a vigorous and healthy hopper, his wings would not work. I understood through my research that he was an adult and not a fledgling that might still find his flight so I feared for him, wished him better, and I held hope that I wouldn’t need to intervene.

He hopped around the yard for what seemed like an eternity. He would hopefully hop underneath the bird feeder and demand (in his clear but shrill bird call) that his friends join him on the ground, of course they didn’t. He would linger under the bird feeder on the ground, eat the fallen seed and wait for friends that never came to his party.

I have observed injured animals over the years and I am always struck by how often they can adapt to significant changes. The typically have a -this is my life now, better get on with it- kind of attitude that I have tried to emulate when faced with my own bewildering maladies. I once saw a deer with a shriveled and mangled leg running happily along with its family and have never forgotten it.

I thought this Grosbeak could heal. Neither wing was drooping and I could see no injury, no infection or any other sign of fading health but he grew more frustrated with each passing day. He hopped aimlessly and everywhere with what I could only call desperation. He couldn't settle down and his frustration became mine. I waited and watched to see if there would be any change but it seemed only to get worse. He wasn’t adapting and I realized that maybe I had asked too much of him. I decided to catch him and get him to the rehab center.

He was surprisingly easy to catch. He put up no fuss and I boxed him up carefully and brought him to the wildlife rehabber for some X-rays and hopefully a good fixin’ up, but I’m no fool and I knew the odds weren’t with him. I worried that I hadn’t intervened quickly enough and then I worried that I’d intervened at all, but I tried to remind myself that these things happen to birds all the time and they go largely unobserved by humans so helping, in this case, was the best thing. Then I did what any upstanding sensitive person might do and I pretended that he was going to be just fine. It’s all fine, I told myself…whatever fine means.

Because the little desperate Grosbeak had made me sad, I worked to forget him. I didn’t occupy myself with factoids on their life spans or habits. The time I spent with him was a very small hiccup of heartbreak, but it was a heartbreak nonetheless. Taking a wild animal from its home is no small thing to me.

So, I put my desire to know and understand Grosbeaks away, I tucked my curiosity back into the recesses of my brain and let old Hop Along fade away. This is a tried and true page out of my playbook of denial that I sometimes allow myself. I go this route when I can’t reconcile the pain I see in the world with what I need to focus on to ensure my own survival.

Fast forward to this spring. When the Grosbeaks returned just a few months ago I immediately thought of my friend Hop-Along and I felt some trepidation. I had already covered all of the big windows on our house with bird repelling decals (in case it was a window strike) and I had made a few other adjustments as well. I imagined, dreamed, schemed and worked to manifest a safe haven for the birds and I felt very hopeful that no such tragedy would happen this year. Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice they say…

A few, very short days later though, I was pressing my face into my hands, chewing my lip anxiously and of course asking… “Why?!?!”

There he was. Grounded. A different bird to be sure, but the same kind of bird. The stalwart, overly proud, silly looking Grosbeak. He hopped around, frustrated and furious. He drove the dogs crazy. They wanted him to fly, that’s the fun of it! Grounded and alone the dogs would just watch him hop along and look at me as if to say: ‘This one belongs in the air”.

I may have been momentarily more wounded than the bird when I watched him hop along and then pop himself up onto a low branch of a small tree. He hopped up branch after branch, going further and further up until he made his way to the very tippy top of the shortest tree he could find and then, he just stared up at the sky. A second later I heard the plaintive call of the male bird who had gotten as high up as he could manage, but still couldn’t reach his mate. She was there, looking down from 40 feet above him. They called back and forth for a short time and then she flew away.

Oh, Hop-Along, what to do, what to do? I asked myself but then set aside a day to observe and decide. Nothing hasty. All in all, he seemed quite calm, he seemed to be resigning himself because after a day had gone by, he did something quite different than the old Hop-Along, he settled quickly into a new life. He proudly and resolutely, made that 9 foot fir tree his home.

He spent his days hopping from limb to limb. I gave him a private feeder that I hung halfway up the tree and he perched on it, happily crunching seeds from the first moment I hung it. I gave him his own watering hole at the base of his tree, a shallow rectangular pan and he would hop to the ground and drink. Sometimes he would go deep into the center of the tree near the trunk and hide himself, but most of his time was spent at the very tippy, top perched as high as he could go, where he could call to his mate. They had conversations and sometimes she would fly down to visit. Other birds would also visit, birds of the same and different species, but make no mistake, he was king of that little tree, it was his domain.

I named him Tree Bird then, because he had graduated and set himself apart from Hop Along. Every situation is different and it’s hard to remember that sometimes when we have our past experiences running a continuous playback loop in our minds.

His mate would often sit high above him, working to inspire him to flight, always to no avail. He filled his days with visits from friends and time alone at his private feeder. He was maintaining a social structure in a way that Hop-Along hadn’t managed to do. Still, I worried. I wanted a different life for him, I wanted him to be “fixed”. I felt that if I waited too long to get him to the rehab center, it might ruin his chances of proper healing. So, I made the difficult decision to catch him.

Ha! Tree Bird had other plans, his own agenda. And what was effortless last year, became impossible. He was the fastest hopper I had ever seen and he spent the better part of a day evading me. When he had finally had enough of my antics, he speed hopped his way right through a hole in our welded wire fence. Gone, but not for good.

He was back in his tree the next morning giving me the side eye and if I even came a little bit close to the tree he would take evasive action, hopping from one side of the tree to the other or burying himself deep in the needle laden boughs, close to the trunk. I made another decision then, to leave him alone. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just to leave something alone. Something had to shift I suppose and when faced with circumstances I was unable to change, I had to make a change.

Tree Bird got very comfortable then and settled even further into a routine. He had food, water and friends and I tried not to pity him. I made a choice to not to feel sad about him, to not superimpose my story about his life over his own. He would spend his days moving around various branches of the tree, usually ending up on the tippy top, having an argument with his wife. “Harold you idiot, just fly!”…

“Do you think I haven’t tried Mildred?!?!?!”

I often muttered the same thing to myself. Fly damn you! But I’d say it very quietly to make sure he couldn’t hear me because he certainly didn’t need any more criticism. “C’mon Tree Bird!!”… I’d whisper to no one (but especially not to Tree Bird), he did not have time for my weirdly over wrought human theories about his life or how I desired him to live it.

He also didn’t want to be my friend and I made my peace with that, but that didn’t stop me from going all in on Grosbeak facts. I told my mom: “did you know Grosbeaks can live up to 15 years?”. Then I’d tell my husband: “Did you know Grosbeaks live in bonded pairs for life?”. Then the next day, “Did you know that Grosbeaks only migrate elevation? They don’t actually cover great geographic areas, they just go higher and lower with the seasons”.

“Yes, you told me that yesterday” my husband said but I pretended not to hear. “Curious isn’t it?” I’d absentmindedly reply. For about a month or so, many of my sentences began with “Did you know that Grosbeaks….”

It might seem that being obsessed with Tree Bird was a full time job for me, but there were hours and hours of each day where I didn’t think about him at all. I knew he was just out there doing his thing, living his new flightless life. He seemed fine to be honest and I’m no expert on how these things play out. So, I watched and waited. I looked for signs that his friends might be leaving and felt a little concerned. Grosbeaks are social, bonded and they travel together. They would likely be moving on soon.

Tree Bird must have sensed it too because one day I saw him hopping around his tree as usual, but then suddenly he lifted off one branch and made a short flight up to another branch. It was flight! It was choppy and short, but it was definitely flight. His wings had caught air for just the briefest moment and he was elated and I was elated…but then it was over. He didn’t repeat that or any flight the whole rest of the day, or the next day either. In fact, I never saw him fly again but the third day after his short flight, he started disappearing from the tree for extended periods of time. There was a week or so where he wasn’t in his tree for hours every afternoon and long into the evening and I didn’t see him on the ground or anywhere else. I’d hope against hope that I would never see him again, but every morning he’d be back in his tree, just like nothing had happened.

‘Good morning Tree Bird.” I’d say because he was always there, no matter how long he had disappeared the previous day. His absences were a mystery, because I never saw him truly fly, even though I had some evidence that it might be possible. Back in his tree every morning, it was just business as usual. His wings were seemingly useless and he would just hop around. Nothing to see here. Move along weird lady. Then one morning, after his usual absence the day before, Tree Bird wasn’t in his tree. Tree Bird was gone. His mate stopped visiting as well and all activity at his little tree ceased.

I watched for several days half expecting his stubborn little face to be peeking out at me from the branches of his tree, but he didn’t return. I left his personal bird feeder up and kept replenishing his water, but it all remained untouched. Days passed and then one afternoon a Grosbeak came swooping down and landed on the top of his tree. I took a few steps toward the tree and he stared at me defiantly before lifting off gracefully, then he flew to the highest heights and joined his friends on a towering branch.

“Tree Bird is that you?” I will never be certain. Some things I can never know for sure. I can suspect, I can hope and wonder, but I am often careful about being absolutely certain. Certainty is something best reserved for the foolish, the naive or the stubborn.

Still, I loved two birds and not exactly in the same way that I ‘love all birds’ (gestures grandly). I had avoided feeling that love with Hop-Along because I had to maneuver through my own expectations for his life. Tree Bird was different and I felt a little more free and less shackled by my own story. That I love so relentlessly sometimes feels like a curse. If my love is flawed (as loving something sometimes can be) I won’t love any less, but I might try to love differently. Because if love is perfect, the act of loving is not. The act of loving may be subject to some rational discernment, but much of it isn’t. It’s messy, visceral, and it hinges on our current available capacities and emotional intelligence.

For some, the act of loving something can even be the stuff of tragedies or a path to madness, a tin cup that rattles the subconscious until that cup is full of shadow and the specters of rage, envy and fear come spilling out. So I often ask myself if I can love better. Does love mean action or observation? Does it mean letting go or does it mean holding tight? Does it mean intervening or letting things lie as they are?

One thing love does seem to be is a practice. A fine line we walk between our own desire for a specific outcome and just what actually happens. The more we practice, the more we melt into the wordless ending, the calm, quiet place where everything is simultaneously both broken and whole.

When the Grosbeaks left, I wanted to believe that Tree Bird was among them, but there was always a chance he was not. He could have been eaten by a fox and I can never be certain. One thing I do know is that I fiercely loved those two little birds and I’m not positive they were truly any better for it…but perhaps I am?

Perhaps I am.

Tree Bird. Out of his tree, on the day I tried to catch him.

This is original, creative work written by me, Valkyrie J. Liles. All photos are also my own, shot on my pixel phone. I never use or consult any AI and I never will.