Goodbye Winter

Star Magnolia in Bloom

I'm pretty sure that Winter is finished here in Athens. Sure, there could still be some more cold snaps coming, but the temperatures here are balmy, in the 70's and 80's. In fact, it almost feels like Spring will whiz past without giving us a chance to savor the "just right" temperatures between frigid and roasting. We may be in for another record breaking scorcher summer and drought. I sure hope not, but signs are pointed that direction. Meanwhile, though, it's a lovely Spring, and the camellia bushes and ornamental magnolias are blooming like mad and the daffodils are standing tall and dreamy yellow in patches all over the city. The Cedar Waxwings can still be seen bopping through the treetops, but they have polished off most of the choice winter berries and I expect that they will be leaving soon, along with the masses of Grackles and Robins. By the way, in case you were wondering, the collective noun for a group of Grackles is "Plague". They certainly do swarm in, like a plague of locusts, and eat everything in the feeders and throw the leaf mulch all over, but I still like them. I enjoy their raspy sounds and iridescent blue/black feathers. And it is amazing to watch hundreds of them launch in unison from the trees when they decide it is time to move on to the next yard. The celebrity Baltimore Orioles and the Rufous Hummingbird that have stuck around our yard all winter are still sticking around. Lots of people have come by to look at them, including some Ornithology Classes from UGA! Friends asked us why we had crowds of people with binoculars in our yard. It makes me smile every morning to see the hummer perched at our kitchen window feeder, guzzling away. And, as they did in Gainesville, the Orioles chatter at me when I refill their grape jelly feeders. They also like to drink from the hummingbird feeders, so it is a challenge to keep them all full. It was exciting to see 3 Orioles last week for the Backyard Bird Count.

Cedar Waxwing feeding on Ligustrum berries

Plague of Grackles

3 Orioles at the Feeder!

Rufous Hummingbird takes a rain bath

When I see the Hummingbird in his usual spot in the bushes, where he can keep a watch over the whole yard, I wonder what is going on in his mind. He is so far away from where he should be. Does he know it? Does he care? Does he miss being with his own species? He looks kind of lonely, but hopeful. Always on the watch. Is he looking for other hummingbirds? Does he miss having other birds to hang out with? Do hummingbirds even do that? I imagine that he'll decide to fly home one of these days soon. But where exactly is home? For summer breeding season, that would somewhere in the upper Northwest and into Canada and Alaska. Migration season they would mostly be in the Mountain West, California and Mexico. And for winter, mostly Mexico. That's a long way from Georgia for a tiny bird, but Rufous Hummingbirds are tough. I was reading more about Rufous Hummingbirds and found that they live 4-5 years and are one of the hardier species that can withstand some cold winter temperatures. In the Q&A section of one website, someone asked if it was true that hummingbirds migrated on the backs of geese. I really laughed at that one. The answer is no. But I do wonder when the hummer will go back to be with "his people" or if he'll stick around for a while longer. The Ruby Throated Hummingbirds are ready to begin their migration back north again and when they arrive, he'll have lots of competition at the feeder, if he stays that long. I wish him luck on his trip back home, wherever that may be, even though I will miss seeing his little silhouette through the bushes. He needs to get back to breed. I will miss all the winter visitors, but the seasons change and nature calls on them to move on. Now it's time to welcome the next seasonal guests.

Surveying the Yard

And speaking of the next season, the butterflies are here! I saw these Azures and my first Mourning Cloak at the Botanical Garden the other day. Spring is here for sure.

Spring Azures

Mourning Cloak (terrible picture but first sighting for me in Georgia!)

Grackles

Boat Tailed Grackle

I really like grackles, especially the big Boat Tailed variety. Their name is funny and onomatopoeic. Grackles are big and cheeky and gregarious. They chatter and squawk back and forth to each other with their creaky, rusty voices. They make a funny, clucking sound sometimes, and I can't tell if it's vocal, or the sound as they ruffle their feathers. It would be hard for a flock of grackles to sneak up on anyone because they're so noisy. I think they're beautiful, especially the males, with their iridescent black/blue/green feathers and big shiny beaks. The females look like an entirely different bird. They're a light brown and smaller than the males, but their behavior is similar enough that you can see a family resemblance. The males perch on tall reeds or fence posts keep a watchful eye for predators or other males. When danger nears, they cluck and creak out in warning.

Female Grackle foraging

Vigilant Male Grackle 

Grackles are very adaptable and can be found just about anywhere, from the beach to the Prairie to a Walmart parking lot.  I smile when I watch them strutting around like they own the place, wherever that is. When they descend on the bird feeders in our yard I always feel lucky (even though they'll probably eat most of the food) because they are so pretty and funny and I get to watch them up close for a while. But not everyone shares my enthusiasm for grackles. Some people get mad that they eat their bird food and farmers consider them a nuisance. Some crazy people seem to be mortally afraid of them and want to kill them. Others just think they're ugly and noisy. To make matters worse, a group of grackles is known as a "plague". Ogden Nash wrote this poem about grackles:

The Grackle
The Grackle's voice is less than mellow,
His heart is black, his eye is yellow,
He bullies more attractive birds
With hoodlum deeds and vulgar words,
And should a human interfere,
Attacks that human in the rear.
I cannot help but deem the grackle
An ornithological debacle.

I like the rhyme, but couldn't disagree more with Mr. Nash's sentiments. How could he know what's in a grackle's heart? And what bird could be more attractive than grackles, with their lustrous rainbow purples?

Beautiful Bird

The people of Winthrop, Minnesota, on the other hand, love their grackles and celebrate their return with every year with their Grackle Days festival. According to Wikipedia, Winthrop is known as "the grackle city of the world".  Coincidentally, this year's celebration just ended yesterday.

I think that Robert Penn Warren also liked grackles. In this sad, sweet poem about death and loss, it seems to me that he used the color and sound of the grackle as a familiar comfort touchstone. With their regular migration, the grackles seem to represent the constant passage of time and the promise of the return of spring (life). Despite death and loss, time will not stop and life will go on. Seasons change and the grackles will come again. I think this is beautiful and bitter-sweet, like grackles.

Grackles, Goodbye
Black of grackles glints purple as, wheeling in sun-glare,
The flock splays away to pepper the blueness of distance.
Soon they are lost in the tracklessness of air.
I watch them go. I stand in my trance.

Another year gone. In trance of realization,
I remember once seeing a first fall leaf, flame-red, release
Bough-grip, and seek, through gold light of the season's sun,
Black gloss of a mountain pool, and there drift in peace.

Another year gone. And once my mother's hand
Held mine while I kicked the piled yellow leaves on the lawn
And laughed, not knowing some yellow-leaf season I'd stand
And see the hole filled. How they spread their obscene fake lawn.

Who needs the undertaker's sick lie
Flung thus in the teeth of Time, and the earth's spin and tilt?
What kind of fool would promote that kind of lie?
Even sunrise and sunset convict the half-wit of guilt.

Grackles, goodbye! The sky will be vacant and lonely

Till again I hear your horde's rusty creak high above,

Confirming the year's turn and the fact that only, only,

In the name of Death do we learn the true name of Love.