It’s time to fill the birdfeeders.
(Warning: Post not actually about birds.)
I used to think birdfeeders were for the birds. But they’re not. Not really, anyway.
“The birds don’t need us to feed them,” Geoff LeBaron, director of the Christmas Bird Count for the National Audubon Society, told me for a National Geographic News story back in 2022.
Sure, all the backyard chickadees and titmice love it when you put out free food. But if you forget to fill ‘er up for a few weeks, or even take your feeders down for the season, it’s not like those birds die. They simply switch over to the abundant natural sources of food already out on the landscape, according to the experts, at least.
So why not take all the feeders down, save yourself some work, and stop shelling out for sunflower seeds and thistle?
“The ultimate purpose of bird feeding,” said LeBaron, “is for people and families to actually see the birds that are in their yard, which is a wonderful thing.”
In other words, you’re doing it for the wonder. The joy.
Maybe seeing birds makes you feel good, because they’re beautiful. Or because they’re cheeky. Or maybe because there’s something wholesome about little living things flitting in and out of your life.
Because having birds outside your window reminds you that it’s a great big world, with lots of places to run to, and maybe all of that makes your heart sing.
And man, right now, half of us is in desperate need of some heart-sing. Simultaneously, the other half of us is jumping for joy. It’s a weird moment. And if you’re searching for someone to make sense of it, I’m probably not your guy.
So I’ll tell you what I do know—and that is just that you have to keep filling up that birdfeeder.
Do your ab exercises. Go for a hike. Build the LEGO.
Sneak a piece of the kids’ Halloween candy with your morning coffee and sing an old song louder than you normally would.
“Grow a beard, take a bath, burn a billboard,” suggested Ed Abbey. “Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise,” sang Stevie Nicks.
Crush that deadline. Hold a sip of wine on your tongue. Howl at the moon.
I don’t know where you live, but outside my window, there are juncos, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and crows. These birds don’t migrate, despite the earth starting to lean away from the warmth of the sun and the temperatures beginning to dip each night. The leaves are falling all around them. The flowers are gone. The buzz of insects is quieting, and the last fruits of the season have shriveled up.
And yet, there they are, sifting through the leaf litter and banging their heads against dead trees, finding a way to make do. There’s still nourishment to be found out there. Even when the winds of winter begin to howl and the world is blanketed in white, they’ll find a way to survive.
“Wash teeth if any… change socks… read lots [of] good books…” Woody Guthrie wrote in his diary. “Learn people better… love everybody… make up your mind.”
Today, I’m filling all my birdfeeders, walking barefoot through my backyard, and writing about moles and mummies.
I’ll leave you with one more entry from Woody Guthrie’s list of 33 New Year’s Resolutions. You can read it politically—and maybe that’s how he meant it—but I’ve always read it sort of existentially, in the vein of carpe diem or “Enjoy every sandwich.”
Just four little words that I’ve always loved:
“Wake up and fight.”