On the Wing: Missing summer sounds

BY KAY CHARTER

October 05, 2008 12:00 am

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Every now and then, people we know well say or do something that surprises us.

Thus it was for me a couple of weeks ago when my good friend Margaret Ellen and I engaged in one of our marathon telephone conversations. We've known each other a very long time, meeting when we were young children and her family moved into the farmland community where my family lived. We both left that area as young adults, but we have kept in touch over the years -- first by letter and then e-mails, a few visits and regular phone calls.

It's fair to say that we know each other well enough that each of us could likely predict accurately how the other might react to a given situation. Still, during our recent talk, her reaction to fall migration was one I would never have expected.

"Kay, where are the birds?" she asked, in an insistent tone.

"It's late in the year," I said. "Most have headed south."

"But this is only September; and there aren't even any shorebirds. They're usually here until a cold front pushes them out. Even my catbirds are gone"

Her voice broke as she added, "I miss them. It's too quiet; I love their songs during the summer and I hate that they're gone."

I've long known that Margaret Ellen enjoyed the feathered creatures around her. She is not, however, what I would call a birder. By that I mean that she doesn't grab her binoculars and head out daily or weekly during spring migration to check out what's new at Connecticut's Hammonasett Beach State Park. The park is a long stone's throw from her current home and is the place where she takes her dog for his nearly daily walk. During those walks, she does take note of the more visible birds. But she doesn't chase down every warbler or vireo to get a better look.

Because her home was built in an older subdivision where much native vegetation was left on large lots, woodland specialties like eastern towhee, great crested flycatchers and wood thrushes are regular nesters. And then, of course, there are her catbirds.

I'd had an experience days earlier when I was struck by how quiet it was in the woods on our property and over our meadows. How different this same walk was three months earlier when the place was full of life.

Then I had stopped at the pond and listened to green frogs call from the back edge and watched painted turtles sunning themselves on a half-submerged log. Dragonflies were everywhere. A bobolink sang from the field and, nearby, tree swallow parents labored to feed hungry mouths in their nest boxes. Baby birds were everywhere. Gray catbird fledglings begged from a black cherry tree and cedar waxwings stuffed themselves on ripened serviceberries.

They are gone now, my beautiful birds of summer. Orioles and buntings, warblers and grosbeaks have taken their lovely songs along with their spectacular colors to faraway places where they can find food to sustain them far from their nesting sites on our land.

Like my friend, I was -- as I am every year -- deeply affected by their absence. Like her, I was saddened by their leaving.

I am not a birder in the traditional sense, either. Unless I'm leading a tour, I almost never take binoculars out to look at what's new on our property, even though it's a very productive piece of land. But, like my friend, I love hearing them and knowing that they have returned once again to nest and raise their young.

It's enough for me to know that my husband and I have provided them with the best habitat we can offer, and that that high quality habitat will help them raise their young effectively. It's not that I don't appreciate seeing them; I do. But knowing that we're aiding them is far more important to me than merely watching them.

Still, even though I don't do a lot of bird watching, I suffer when they leave. Just like my friend.

I was at a momentary loss during our telephone conversation when her sadness was revealed. It was something I hadn't expected. But I should have. Their presence gives her as much joy as it does me.

Kay Charter, of Omena, is executive director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat, an organization that teaches people how to help migrating birds whose populations are declining.