Finally, from feeder birding to road birding!

Here it is the middle of November and still we have days of glorious sun and startlingly blue skies. Occasionally the temperature drops below freezing in the early hours of dawn, lacing the cars and the shadowy bits of lawn with a skin of frost. The trees may be bare, the forest floor, a carpet of rust-colored leaves, the lawns, green, but still the days feel like the beginning of autumn.

The garden has for the most part withered. Garlic and shallots have been pulled, bagged and hung. Surprisingly, this past weekend I was able to cut enough parsley to make a bowl of tabbouleh. This has to be the latest ever for us to still not have an all encompassing hard frost.

Danny fills the feeders, so I, with my healing leg, can bird from indoors. As soon as the feeders are up, the birds appear, some flying in, others searching the ground for fallen sunflower seeds.

First to arrive and feed daily are tufted titmice and chickadees. Soon there are white-breasted nuthatches pecking away, upside-down at the suet. In come the woodpeckers three, the hairy, the downy and the red-bellied. The local clan of mourning doves wiggle-walk across the lawn and onto the patio. The posse of blue jays shriek as they arrive en masse, startling the smaller birds.

Soon the migrants from up north join the stalwart winter residents: white-throated sparrows and many a junco, small gray birds with those semaphoric white outer tail feathers. One day a solitary grackle may appear; another, a trio of red-winged blackbirds, lingering here in the warm weather. The other morning a mixed flock of blackbirds, maybe 200 strong, landed on the bare branches, the ground and in the bushes by the feeder. I go to get my binocs to see if maybe there are cowbirds or rusty blackbirds among them. Alas, my neighbor at that very moment decides to sight his deer rifle. Blam! and the murmuration in the making rises up, up and away.

The round globe feeders are very popular not just among the small birds, but with the boisterous blue jays and this year, to our consternation, squirrels. The acorn crop is sparse, I was told, as are the nut crops from hickory and walnut trees. Perhaps this is driving in the squirrels (no chipmunks, though) to steal and stash sunflower seeds from our feeders … under leaves, in truck crevices and under logs.

Chickadees, titmice and nuthatches crawl into the globes that have lost their tops … to bears, to hungry blue jays or to fierce wind storms as the feeders fly off their hooks and roll across the snow, the top ne’er to be found again. How odd it is to see a titmouse in the globe with its tail cocked like a wren.

This year for the first time in two years, purple finches have deigned to visit. These brown, stripe-y, raspberry red birds have been here for about three weeks, a sign that there may be a poor seed crop or maybe a population explosion up north. Maybe we’ll have visits from redpolls, siskin and other winter finches this year 

But the time has come for me to take to the road and bird as the sun is rising, on this another almost summery fall day. The first bird I hear and see is a red-breasted nuthatch, yet to appear at the feeder this year. I see another trunk walker … a brown creeper! Chickadees and titmice seem to be following me as I slowly walk along with only the slightest of limps.

As I pass the garden area, bluebirds burble. I watch a flock of seven fly from the tall pine to the nearby leafless shagbark hickories. Robins cluck and chuck from within the woods. Many consider these two species migratory. Some are and some are not. Both, though, flock in the winter. It’s possible the flocks we see during the winter are birds that lived and bred in Canada during the summer months.

Crows call from afar, interrupted now and again by a croaking raven. I wonder if the crows are chasing the raven, but they are too far away for me to even catch a glimpse. A skein of Canada geese flies low over the horizon, but does not circle back to land on the pond. There is nary a duck, loon or goose on the water. But a small charm of drab goldfinches work the bushes covered with bittersweet berries. I reach today’s turn-around point, a half-mile from the house.

On my return jaunt, a pileated woodpecker is kuk-kuk-kuking from deep in the woods. A small Carolina wren sings from a nearby branch, louder than any of the other tweets, twitters and chirps.

Back at the house, as I walk into the bedroom, I notice a small bird outside near the feeders, hopping with both legs forward, and then jumping back, back and forth, back and forth as it works the ground. A fox sparrow, rather late for this beautiful migrant from Labrador to be passing through!