February 2008

Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's,
For that good bishop's sake.
--Michael Drayton

Now that winter has settled in, life slows to a crawl up on the hill. It’s dark outside as we get ready for work, and the day’s light is spent by the time we return home each evening. The frantic afternoon rush to water the sun-baked garden is just a distant memory, as is the summer’s long twilight which let us putter outside late into the balmy evening. Now, after work, we eat dinner at the kitchen counter, in the company of the evening news; by 8 pm, we’ve locked up the house and sport flannel pajamas and thick wool socks. We might as well be huddled around some smoky medieval fireplace, dressed in scratchy burlap and eating thin gruel out of a wooden bowl. It’s the Dark Ages, it is.

At least the weekend mornings give us a chance to watch as the birds arrive at the feeders. During the week, it’s too dark for birds to be out and about when we’re preparing to meet the work day, and too dark for us to see them, even if they were there. But at the weekend, we watch as tiny chickadees and finches, feathers fluffed out to trap as much body heat as possible, hang on the thistle feeder like brown cotton balls on the boll. The bigger birds, mostly cardinals and jays, squawk and chatter at the squirrel doing acrobatic stunts on new “squirrel-proof” bird feeder. The squirrel’s tail whips back and forth as he stuffs his cheeks with sunflower seeds. The jays finally have enough and start a dive-bombing campaign against the interloper until he takes the hint and hightails it up the oak.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, St. Valentine’s Day not only commemorated the 270 AD death of Valentinus, a Roman bishop, but also was thought to be the day that birds propose to each other and begin preparing a nest for the spring’s eggs. We like the idea of the scarlet cardinals courting the smaller dun-colored females. The males are eye-catching—red feathers against white snow and waxy-green pine needles. What girl could say no to such a handsome gentleman caller?

The dignified and dapper mourning doves seem always to be paired up—they roost and feed and fly together, Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn on the wing. In stark contrast to the quiet doves, the finches are the raucous Corleone or Soprano family—they swoop down to the leafless wisteria arbor in great milling masses, squabbling and gossiping and hopping about. They torment each other at the feeder, jockey for position, push each other off the perches when too much time goes by. Just when we’re sure complete anarchy will reign, they regroup and move en masse to the thicket out by the willow tree, camaraderie restored.

Even the big black rooks and sooty grackles are a welcome diversion from the glacial pace of these winter days. They stalk through the lawn in shiny packs, glistening in the sun like a bunch of thugs with greased-back hair, leather jackets and all. “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way” runs through my head as I watch them strut. The grackles call to each other, hoarse-throated cries that send the dog on wild sprees of barking and yipping—torn between the urges to charge the birds and stay inside the warm house. Comfort usually prevails, and she contents herself with quiet growls while sprawled in front of the heating vent under the kitchen table.

With Easter so early this year, it’s a little easier to look out on the icy, barren garden and believe what Michael Drayton, Elizabeth I’s court poet, wrote over four hundred years ago: that winter is in decline by St. Valentine’s Day. Walking into the grocery, we’re met head-on by the scent of hyacinths. Soon, we’ll venture out to the garden and search for those brave green arrowheads poking up from the cold earth: the year’s first daffodils. Maybe we’ll cut a few quince or forsythia branches and bring them in for forcing. But today, it’s martyred Roman bishops and West Side Story and bird marriages that occupy our still-snowy thoughts.