What we talk about when we talk about birds

My fall section of the Sunday Eve Generative Solidarity Writing Group starts 9/27 and runs for 8 weeks (virtual on Zoom). This is for all genres and levels of writers who want a chance to be in community. We write, we empower, we encourage, we plan, we ponder, we share, we laugh, we cry, we scratch our heads, we summon, we cast, we conjure. Come join us!

There’s always a sliding scale. Pets in the Zoom background can register for free.

Here’s a photo of me sitting inside the confounding and spectacular dream realm that is the earth:

I’m not one of those “I know what that bird is called” people. When I see what I now know are the wrens in my yard, I call them all Susan. Then there’s the ones I found out were called Carolina wrens, but I call them all Punk Rock Bob because they squat in little human roof-corners and in other birds’ nests. I do know how to spot the robins, though I call them all Cheryl. And my mom informed me that the goofy yellow marshmallow peeps that bounce the rudbeckia and cosmos flowers all up and down are goldfinches, but Peeps is clearly a way better name.

Recently in the birdhouse on my deck, some Susan fledglings busted out. I first realized the tiny little nerds were in there because they screech like banshees who just smoked the neighborhood’s hottest meth.

And I started to notice that Mom Susan would scream to Dad Susan from the hydrangea every time I unwittingly neared the birdhouse, then she’d fly over to the scraggly pine where he was hanging out, smoking cigarillos or watching wren sportsball or whatever wren dads get up to.

Then Mom Susan would go to the top floor of the birdhouse—it’s a double-decker—with a worm or weird green bit, and hop through the top hole, and the screeches of the Cracked-Out Baby Susan Banshees would slice through the air, then she’d hop out the bottom floor hole. And alas: While this was happening, Dad Susan would move to the wire near the birdhouse, wait for Mom to finish, and repeat the whole routine himself:

They did this for several days, and the urgency and frequency of the whole routine became greater with more worms and more bits and more of Mom yelling at Dad to put out his cigarillo and get the hell over here…and I realized the Baby Susans were about to get their fledge on. Being a nosy-ass human, I tried to monitor the situation, ‘cause who doesn’t want to witness a bunch of comically tiny, dishevelled birds who are equal parts fluffy and wet tumble out of their house and realize air and space and all the various stakes of flight for the first time? To top off the comedy routine, apparently the first one goes and they all just flip and flop after the leader. Cue Benny:

But every time I got near, Mom and Dad Susan yelled at each other from all their various posts at whoever else would listen—Dan the resident deer, Big Boy the groundhog, all the Punk Rock Bobs—about what I can only assume translated roughly to, “the Idiot Human is approaching again!”

Can you blame them? I backed off and, alas, missed the moment of fledge, which was likely the early morn following the above video. And it’s okay. Who am I to be so bold as to assume it is my right to witness the first flight of a painfully cute and vulnerable being? I’ve learned to take cues from nature as to when something is none of my beeswax.

Here’s a poem I wrote about what we talk about when we talk about birds. The whole thing’s true:

what we talk about when we talk about birds

the dying woman and I watched birds out the window. eight birds together on one

cold feeder in March. I’ve never known the names of birds, I said. the ice is water now,

she said, meaning the puddle. I said I’d never understood how birds keep warm

in winter; she said she didn’t know either, but it went unspoken that we wouldn’t dare

google. then she read me her poem about birds, apologizing the whole time

for her breath, interrupting her own cherished lines; keep going, I said. she said,

but you have to remember to keep the feeders full. okay, I promise, I said. those

feeders there—those ones? yes—promise?

Hope you are hanging out with summer beauty and that your heart is full of light and hope. Maybe see you at September’s generative class.

love and solidarity,

carolyn z

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