Common Birds XXIV - Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
Tuesday, May 9
I’m at the side of the pond, looking at spider webs glinting in the sun. Each strand has two bright spots which move and shimmer as the wind catches the webs. This double shimmering is not ‘real’ in a sense, but a result of my perception. One spot is seen by one eye, and for whatever reason, my brain does not resolve this discrepancy as it does for most misalignments between my eyes. I watch as the doubled light dances in the shifting breeze. Spider webs are so sensitive to ripples in the air. I wonder if spiders can use them like humans use sonar arrays. Sounds emanate from a source, and the spherical spreading of the sound waves causes them to arrive at different times for different regions of the web. If the spiders are clever, they can use the time differential of the identical sound vibrations to pinpoint the direction of any given sound. With their feet touching the web, they become an enormous ear, sensitive to the quietest whisper.
But back to birds! The pond has been quiet, so I’ve been branching out. Last week, I wanted to see where the cattail marsh empties into the river. I hoped I’d have an unimpeded view of the cattails (I want to see a marsh wren!), but there’s a line of trees between the marsh and the trail. Not what I was hoping for but it’s still nice. The outlet is narrow, meandering, and turgid. The confluence of marsh, woods, and river make it a perfect spot for seeing an enormous density of different birds. I see my first yellow warbler of the year, and standing on a little wooden bridge, I hear cardinals, red-winged blackbirds, titmice, catbirds, chickadees, pheobes, flickers, song sparrows, warbling vireos, yellow warblers, yellow-rumped warblers, robins, and something I didn’t recognize.
So, I stand up, thank the spider webs and head over to the marsh’s outlet. The trail is enfolded with green and green and green. Grasses wave where the trail is not too hard, and the trees are not too thick. Ferns grow in recesses, in the shadows, where the ground dips and water pools after the rain. Honeysuckle fills the region between the top of the grass and the lowest boughs of the trees with its verdant leaves, and on each tree branch buds which were smaller than the tip of my pinky have unfolded and grown into a canopy abundant enough to block out the sky.
In the midst of all this green are the birds. Again the robin, again the yellow warbler, again the red-winged blackbird. And again this mysterious call I cannot place, which sounds like a cross between a robin and a cardinal. I catch a black back out of the corner of my eye, and bob my head to place it past the leaves. A rose-breasted grosbeak perches, sings, and is magnificent. He is part of the cardinal and tanager family and like all males of that lineage his coloring is brilliant. A deep black back and head contrasts with a pure white belly. Most strikingly, he has a rose colored breast like a red handkerchief he wears around his neck. I remember the first time I saw a rose-breasted grosbeak. It was part of what stirred my interest in asking for a birdfeeder for Christmas in 2020. Amelia and I were dating, walking down the wooded road where we both, at different times, lived. High above us, I saw a bird like nothing I’d ever seen before. I asked my mom what it was, and she asked her mom, and Mamaw told me that it was a rose-breasted grosbeak. She saw them in Kentucky about this time of year as they migrated through.
Then, another male grosbeak appeared, then another, and a fourth. In flight, their black wings flash with white patches. They circled, weaving through trees, each trying to sing, and each interrupted.
Tomorrow, I will read a poem called How would you live then? which begins ‘What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks / flew in circles around your head?’ What if only fifty? How would you live then? What if fifteen? What if four? What if only one stood in the branches above you, and caused you to wonder, and ask, what it was?
