The bird's heart

We have two bird feeders in our yard. We put black sunflower seeds in both. We’ve experimented, like a new restaurant, with different varieties and combinations of seeds for them to eat, but we’ve found, no contest, the birds prefer sunflower seeds. They go at them like college students at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Which is what these ravenous birds seem like sometimes.

We have a few species of birds that reliably come to the feeders: Carolina Chickadees, Cardinals, House Finches, American Goldfinches and Carolina Wrens. We have had, depending on the season, quite a few others: White-throated Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Ruby-throated Kinglet, Downy Woodpecker, Brown Thrasher, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Baltimore Oriole and Common Yellowthroat. Watching these birds from our chairs on the porch gives us great calmness and joy.

We make sure the feeders are replenished after the seeds are devoured. Our dog keeps close watch on the feeders from her perch on the couch indoors, peering through the window, waiting for a squirrel to come out of hiding to scavenge the ground for seeds that have been dropped by the birds. Seeing a squirrel makes her day.

Lately, we’ve had near-swarms of American goldfinches at the feeders. It’s not unusual to see fifteen at a time at the feeders and on the ground. The males are pretty little things, with yellow-and-black coloring that’s like a small sun. We were especially glad to have seeds at the ready for the birds during our extreme (for Louisiana) cold spell recently. It got as low as 4 degrees. The birds, somehow, survived and, even in the brutal cold, they came to the feeders.

Male American Goldfinch

Yesterday, my wife Gaywynn went out to refill the tall hanging feeder we have. I was inside. Suddenly, I heard her call me:

“Can you come out and help?! There’s a bird stuck in the feeder!”

I ran out. Gaywynn was holding the empty plastic feeder in her hand. At the base, where, normally, the birds peck out the seeds, was a little American Goldfinch, stuck. It had evidently tried to get the few seeds left at the bottom and had somehow got its head lodged between a small supporting piece of wood that crossed the bottom and the hole itself. Gaywynn was distraught.

Something like our feeder

“We have to do something!” she said. We didn’t want to try to twist the feeder, for worry that it would break the tiny bird’s neck. I touched its warm body. It was so small, so vulnerable. It could feel its little heart beating and the warmth coming through its feathers in my hand. What terror it must have felt! I could feel a wetness on the bottom of its little feathered body.

We didn’t know what to do. There was another supporting piece of wood at the top that prevented me from reaching down to the bottom to see if I could move the containing stick a bit to free the bird. We couldn’t get at it. Then Gaywynn had the idea of sawing the plastic feeder in half. I got my little handsaw, tough and reliable, and began sawing. I’m sure it must have frightened the little bird even more. Imagine the colossal sound, so near you and you, trapped.

I got through the feeder, but I still couldn’t reach the bottom. I had to saw further down, which I did. Now we could see the bird’s trapped head clearly. I gingerly placed my hand on the crossbar and tried to move it ever so slowly away from the bird’s head.

In a feathery explosion, the bird escaped and flew away. It flew up into a live oak tree nearby. Gaywynn burst into tears. It seems the bird—a male, from its markings—was fine. It had rocketed up to the tree like nobody’s business. Wouldn’t you? Clearly, its wings still worked. We sighed in relief. It could all easily have gone wrong.

Suddenly, the day was bathed in goodness. We’d freed the bird from its plastic prison. It had gone to live another day—many more, we hoped. Even better, as there was no way for the bird to thank us. It was just the doing of it.