birds

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Witness to a resurrection

For weeks now, I have been witnessing a resurrection. This is no spectacle bursting forth in a blast of life and color, but a quiet emergence emanating slowly from muddy ground and matted leaves. 

The first shoots of the early wildflower Spring Beauty pierce the leaf cover.

It is the experience of spring granted to those of us who have endured a northern winter and eagerly watch for the first signs of seasonal change. They are everywhere and nowhere. A first glance at the landscape reveals nothing but brown matter, a tangle of bare branches. Then a sharp whistle from the Tufted Titmouse signals it is time to take another, deeper look. Yes, there is something to see. In the woods, wisps of foliage mark the start of what will become drifts of petite Spring Beauty blooms under the trees. In the garden, tips of Daffodil leaves poke upward through the mulch, and here and there, early blooming miniature Irises form the first drops of color. 

A miniature Iris is a welcome sight in an otherwise drab garden.
A Great-horned Owl peers from a nest used by the same species last year.

Other harbingers are returning buzzards soaring overhead as they “kettle” on favorable winds, a Great-horned Owl occupying a nest deeper in the woods, and the appearance near the bird feeders of a Fox Sparrow, an early bird heralding the start of spring migration. Each day seems to bring more evidence: a butterfly flitting past and coming to rest on a patch of tree bark, buds popping out of the stumps of an elderberry bush, followed by the furry catkins on the Pussy Willow, and the cry of “FEE-bee, FEE-bee” as an Eastern Phoebe arrives. 

Once this phenomenon starts, it seems there is no holding back. Almost overnight, Daffodil and Spring Beauty buds unfold and pop into sprays of blooms, a band of Kinglets makes an entrance, the sighting of a Gray Catbird is reported at a nearby marsh, and spring’s calendar reminds us to start watching for the next wildflowers – Dutchman’s Breeches, Swamp Buttercup, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit. 

Admittedly, these beginnings of spring may seem lacking in excitement or even interest to those who, in this digital age, require big, splashy visual displays and the stimulation of quick changes. Truly, it is the rare visitor to our little landscape who appreciates these incipient stages of spring and can savor a first bloom or a sprinkling of green surfacing from under the dull leaf cover.  

Hence it was with great delight a few days ago that I escorted two budding naturalists and their mother through a section of the woods and observed their enjoyment in being shown one of the first Spring Beauty blooms. Although it was a cloudy, windy, cold day and the bloom was closed, these sisters, ages 3 and 5, were visibly elated at the sight and even more so when, after walking a little farther, they found a Spring Cress bloom on their own. Their “Look, here’s another one!” moment was nothing short of exquisite. 

I feel that same joy of discovery every spring as I watch for a resurrection that is promised, but not assured until fully revealed. In the interim, each shoot of green, each small bud gives me faith in what I hope for and evidence for what cannot yet be seen.

After consulting our state guide to butterflies and skippers, I’m calling this an Eastern Comma butterfly.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. 

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When open spaces become dumping places

The “Welcome Birders” signs are up and our little community is ready for an influx of people with binoculars and cameras slung around their necks.

Soon, all eyes will be on the stars of the spring migration – the tiny warblers who stop along Lake Erie’s shores on their way north.

This year, however, birders here for the Biggest Week in American Birding will be seeing a plethora of signs other than those welcoming them. These bright-yellow placards are promoting our community’s effort to stop the dumping of spent lime sludge in a local limestone quarry. Those of us engaged in this David-versus-Goliath fight are hoping to build awareness and elicit additional support from the birding community.

The threat that the quarry dumping poses is something no one in Ottawa County’s Benton Township ever expected to face. Most residents here are occupied with farming, other work, and maintaining their property, even as they enjoy their bucolic location near one of the prime birding spots in the country. Still, because people here are responsible for their own water and sewage via private wells and septic systems, they know what it takes to maintain them. Hence, local conversations of late have been peppered with talk of “the aquifer” that feeds our wells and what effect the dumping of spent lime might have on it, given the sludge contains copper, lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium and other metals and substances. Lacking a municipal  department that manages our water supply, we have banded together, driven by concern for our wells and a love of the area once known as the Great Black Swamp.

Interestingly, the problem we face involves drinking water in another community – an urban one. The city of Toledo in neighboring Lucas County made national headlines nearly three years ago when toxins from the algae bloom on Lake Erie compromised the city’s water, leading to the temporary shutdown of the municipal water-treatment plant.

To prevent a recurrence, Toledo began making changes that included removing from lined lagoons the spent lime used to clean its drinking water and relocating it elsewhere.  Enter an enterprising company, which bought a quarry in Ottawa County and arranged for one of its affiliates to haul and dump the sludge under terms of a multi-million-dollar contract.

Rural Benton Township must have seemed the ideal setting for this operation. Unlike in the city, the proceedings of the governing trustees are not reported in detail by local news outlets. Also, unlike more densely populated suburban neighborhoods, where people take note of everything from the grass-cutting habits of their neighbors to a for-sale sign going up, rural dwellers are more likely to look out their windows and notice an eagle or Northern Harrier soaring over a fallow field.

So it happened that few of us even realized what was going on at the quarry until last year when the persistent efforts of a neighbor who had observed the activity  and tried to raise the alarm finally captured everyone’s attention.  Since then, residents have organized and educated themselves about what exactly the dumping of spent lime sludge in and around the quarry could mean to these environs and most especially the drinking water.

They’ve learned what the state Environmental Protection Agency can and cannot do, what local zoning laws mean, about other communities that have faced and successfully fought similar threats, and how to get the message out to news organizations. They’ve had signs made and set up a Facebook group and a website that includes a link for donations to help pay the hefty legal bills the township has had to absorb to counter the dumping.

Along the way, people have gotten to know each other a little better, setting aside what differences they might have for a unified effort to protect their water. They’ve discovered that many of their neighbors share an interest in the birds that draw visitors to this area each spring and that they want to do what they can to ensure Benton Township continues to provide a friendly habitat for wildlife as well as people.

In listening to the commentary at township meetings over the last months and interacting with our neighbors, it often has struck me how those of us who live in rural areas value the peace, spaciousness, and proximity to the natural world we find outside the city. Yet, these very qualities make our environs vulnerable to outside forces that would exploit what we treasure. It is a good reminder to all of us to keep watch and stay vigilant, even — and perhaps especially —  in the quiet.

To learn more about the Benton Township quarry dumping, visit http://www.stopquarrydumping.com

 

 

 

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On the way of the nothing

“It’s often necessary in life to do nothing, but so few people do it nicely.” – From City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge

The barrenness of winter has always held a certain appeal for me. Perhaps that’s why, as a northerner, I have little desire to flee to a warmer climate as so many of my peers do at this time of year.

Why that is, I’m not certain, but it may have something to do with relishing the opportunity to do nothing for a season. Not literally doing nothing, of course, but I do love that sense of repose that comes each January after the Christmas rush when we settle in for a long winter of reading, evenings by the fire, and a break from the frenzied activity that foists itself upon us with the onset of milder weather.

These days, as I look out on the stark, gray landscape, I can smile at the cheery messages I receive from friends and family waxing on about the sunny, warm weather and what they are doing in Florida or other snowbird destinations. Deep within, I take a kind of secret delight in being able to stay put and enter into the fallowness of this season and its hidden gifts.

A northern winter forces us into a kind of nothingness that can be maddening. But if we are willing to endure long enough to pass through its portal, we can encounter a place of stillness where we know that under or just ahead of the seeming nothingness lies something precious.

I saw that clearly on a recent weekend when I made my way to Magee Marsh, where I go to watch warblers and other migratory birds each spring. I expected nothing in the way of bird sightings, but merely wanted to walk and experience the landscape in its unadorned winter raiment.

Even so, I was happily surprised by the presence of two Northern Saw-whet Owls that other birders had spied in a stand of pine trees at the marsh’s bird center. Farther in, I was treated to splendid views of a Bald Eagle perched near its nest.

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Blogger Kim Clair Smith captured this view of a Northern Saw-whet Owl in 2013 and her sighting was just as happily unexpected as mine. Read about it here.

But what has stayed with me most prominently since that day was the incredibly austere setting of the birders’ boardwalk, bereft of any sign of life. As I walked by the places where I have seen Prothonotary Warblers, Baltimore Orioles, Gray Catbirds, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Northern Parulas, and Red-eyed Vireos, I was mostly struck by the utter nothingness of my surroundings. Aside from two birders I encountered on the way out, I saw no one and nothing but barren and felled trees. The contrast to what I see in the spring was almost breathtaking. In May, I am elbow-to-elbow with birders and nature photographers walking under leafy branches and straining to see Wilson’s or Orange-crowned warblers.  There is a hum of excitement and activity as birders from around the world converge in groups to train their binoculars, scopes, or cameras on a particularly sought-after bird or share the news of a good sighting “at the loop” or “by the east entrance.” Could this be the same place? Indeed, it was.

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The Magee Marsh boardwalk in its winter raiment.

That day, I loved the marsh and the boardwalk for their essence, revealed by the absence of foliage, people, and birds. There seemed to be nothing, but there was something. It was much as I had come to love the frail frame of my aging mother before she died because it reflected the graceful serenity that remained as she was taken down to her bare branches.

By detaching from my desire for and memories of spring and facing the nothingness of the landscape, I received something new, as we do in the spiritual life when we abstain or fast from our pleasures so as to hear and see more deeply things eternal.

In the spring, I will love the marsh even more for having seen it in its barren state. But for now, I will treasure the memory of its frame, consoled by its beauty and anticipating the joy of seeing it transformed from its state of seeming nothingness into one teeming with life.

 

 

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Growing contentment in the garden

The kiss of the sun for pardon,

The song of the birds for mirth,

One is nearer God’s heart in a garden

Than anywhere else on earth. 

 — Dorothy Frances Gurney (1858 – 1932)

From the time I was a small child growing up in a religion rich with liturgical smells and bells, church had been a place where I experienced a sense of God. There, the scent of incense lingering in the air consoled and the candle that flickered day and night in a red glass lamp served as a soothing sign of the divine presence.

All that was altered, however, with the death of my parents. Church suddenly became a place of sad memories: of pushing my mother’s wheelchair in and then struggling to get her to the basement bathroom mid-service. Or of beginning to notice how gray my father’s skin was looking against that of others beside him as his condition worsened.

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Brunera, top, and Woodland Phlox in bloom.

After my parents died within a year and a half of each other, I wasn’t angry at God, but church was simply not the place of peace it had been for me in other seasons. I continued going there in this extended state of grief and spiritual numbness, knowing that it was important to maintain a connection to my faith at such a time, but I was surprised to find more tangible comfort in a new place: my garden.

I had been something of a gardener since marriage eight years earlier had brought with it an acre of unwieldy property peppered with huge pine trees and assorted nooks and crannies that seemed to be begging for attention. But now, I started to attack the dirt with new energy. One day, I noticed that a gentle peace I had not felt for months would settle upon me as I weeded, dug, and watered.

I began to go back for more. Over time, I would not only sense a comforting presence in the garden, but through the growing cycle, I would glean practical spiritual lessons from tending a troublesome plant or discovering the dangers of admitting invasive varieties into my space.

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A male Indigo Bunting, known to sing all day.

I eventually recovered a sense of peace while being in church as memories from that difficult period of loss healed. But I have continued to find solace in the garden, as I know many gardeners do. Perhaps it is because the act of working with our hands frees our minds to listen to a voice that speaks in whispers, in “the kiss of the sun” and “song of the birds,” as Dorothy Frances Gurney says so nicely in the above excerpt from her longer poem, “God’s Garden.” I discovered Gurney’s lines on a decorative plaque as I was venturing into gardening and warmed to them immediately. The words come home to me again and again as I take in bird song and bask in the sun, pausing to consider the richness of my surroundings.

I sometimes think of deceased family members who were gardeners – my husband’s Uncle Bill, to whom my patch of Bee Balm stands in silent tribute; my paternal grandmother, who planted snap dragons with her vegetables, and my father, who left me two precious garden tools from his years of growing a small patch of onions, peppers, tomatoes, and garlic, likely as a holdover from the Great Depression. I understand better now what drew all of them to the dirt and why they seemed so contented when they were communing with the growing cycle.

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Bee Balm, introduced to me by my husband’s Uncle Bill and a favorite of hummingbirds.

Although the words Gurney wrote about gardening were inspired by a very proper English garden at Penshurst Place in Kent, and my own garden is decidedly on the wild side, their sentiments speak to me whether I am reflecting on the beauty of things in bloom or cultivating their home.

Recently, a friend who was surveying my garden when it was much in need of a spring cleaning asked, “Do you ever just get to sit and enjoy this, or are you always working on it?” I do have time to rest on the front porch or stroll through and gaze at the fruits of my labors, but I also am much at peace while planting and pulling weeds. There are exceptions, of course, like when I’m being buzzed by a deer fly or mosquito, dig into a colony of ants, or pick the most humid day of the year for mulching. But on most of the grand days of the growing season, those are mere distractions in what to me is still a refuge, a place where I listen and God speaks.