Nature through the window
Even as I am typing this, there’s a clattering call outside the
window a few feet away. If you’re old enough, you would immediately
recognize the sound as that of an old manual typewriter with a
sheet of paper rolled too loosely into it
– a sort of
”
tat-a-tat-a-tatta
”
call that starts every few minutes.
Nature through the window
Even as I am typing this, there’s a clattering call outside the window a few feet away. If you’re old enough, you would immediately recognize the sound as that of an old manual typewriter with a sheet of paper rolled too loosely into it – a sort of “tat-a-tat-a-tatta” call that starts every few minutes.
The source is a tiny, mostly drab bird called a ruby-crowned kinglet. They are winter visitors to San Benito County, mostly. Kinglets are tiny – not a great deal bigger than the Anna’s hummingbirds that populate feeders around here this time of year.
We are privileged to enjoy the company of two species of kinglets locally, but the golden-crowned kinglet is unlikely to visit urban gardens since it favors coniferous forests. The ruby-crowned, on the other hand, is a regular in our garden each year.
Like a lot of very small birds, this one is pugnacious and bold – the product of a sort of avian Napoleon complex. The bird is scarcely more than four inches long, weighing in at 0.2 ounces – the weight of a small coin.
But the kinglet I’ve been watching for the past three days seems not to know it is smaller than me. As I stand at the window, it comes over and flutters within an arm’s reach.
People grow into birders for a variety of reasons. Some use birds as feathered representations of the stamps that others collect. They keep meticulous lists, adding species over a lifetime into some sort of biological batting average. I’ve led groups and I’ve participated in outings in which one or two people never put away notebooks. They barely glance at a bird representing a species they’ve never encountered before jotting it into their notebooks. They may never be able to name the bird should they encounter it on their own, but they’ve checked it off their hobby’s “to-do list.”
Others view birding as the conduit to adventure, license to probe jungles, cliff tops and forests. Still others chase vagrants – birds that through happenstance arrive at a place outside their normal range. For this rarefied group, the appearance of a Siberian bird in Humboldt Bay is reason enough to leave work, drive six hours nonstop, and have a look.
What draws me back to birds time and again is the chance to know wild things better. Even the most commonplace becomes extraordinary given some careful observation. There’s a pecking order at our feeders. In winter, when the goldfinches mob our nyger feeders, the American goldfinches take a back seat to the smaller lesser goldfinches and, on years when they appear in our area, the pine siskins trump all.
Even among individuals, personalities manifest themselves.
Which brings us back to “our” ruby-crowned kinglet.
If you pay any attention at all, you’ve certainly seen kinglets before. Just in case you do not have a field guide handy, I’ll endeavor to describe the bird. They are mostly clad in olive-drab feathers. Their legs are tiny black sticks that seem too small even to support their insignificant weight. Their beaks are narrow black tweezers, adapted to snatching small insects. They are nearly identical to a common summer bird, the Hutton’s vireo, but best distinguished by a bold black stripe on their wings that appears under the larger white wingbar. There’s a distinction that will demand a good pair of binoculars.
They are curious in the extreme. A little noisemaking – birders call it “pishing” – will draw even the most reluctant individual out of cover to investigate. You can try it by quietly making “ssssshhhh, ssssshhh” sounds. That’s best done when strangers are not passing by. The birds seem nervous, constantly fluttering and readjusting their wings.
Our garden kinglet appears to have discovered its reflection in our windows, and it clearly regards the presence of its reflection as an unwarranted challenge.
One may observe kinglets many times without observing the feature for which they are named. But when excited or enraged, the ruby-crowned kinglet raises a small patch of crimson feathers on top of its head into a crown like that of a cockatoo. The bird in our garden almost never lowers his crown, such is the state of his excitement.
I’ve been tempted to intervene by taping strips of mylar tape to our windows, but I have not.
I’m reluctant to lose the opportunity to witness this small drama unfolding. And I’m reluctant to attempt to stop a wild animal from doing what it chooses to do. I’ve watched the bird long enough to know that it continues to feed, ridding our garden of countless tiny insects and spiders.
So I’ll continue to watch nature unfolding outside my window, begging me to stay home to see what happens next.
