Cost effectiveness is for the birds

My lifelong pursuit of ways to procrastinate joy has to stop now, because tomorrow there could be a patch of solid air I didn’t see coming and how sad it would be to leave so many good things undone.

I have been refilling the bird feeders every three or four days, even though they are emptied in one. I’ve noticed that the birds still hang around when the feeders are empty; they yell at me, or sing to me, and tell me all about their exhaustion and the work at home and how, a few weeks ago, I let the little dog desecrate the fallen corpse of one of their babies.

I didn’t let the dog do this. I noticed him under the Norway Maple and heard the Song Sparrow chirping away, hopping on the ground around him. He is a terrier and I thought he had a lizard or something he was hunting, but then I realized how intent the little sparrow was, and how distressed. I yelled at the dog but he is deaf, and even back in the days when he could hear, he was obstinate. I ran across the yard and chased him away from the tree, the sparrow now pleading with me, and I picked up the dead chick carefully. Apparently it had fallen from the nest, uncoordinated and unready for the world. It wasn’t the dog’s fault, or mine; try telling that to a noisy sparrow with its incessant song.

Anyways. I have been leaving the feeders empty for a couple of days in between feedings because I know there is other food for them, and black oil sunflower seeds are not cheap at the rate we go through them. I asked my husband to pick up a bag at the farmer’s co-op when he bought chicken food a few weeks ago, and now he knows how expensive my habit is. I need to be more covert.

When the feeder is empty, I notice a flock of tennis balls landing on the thistles in the pasture. Our field is uncut and mostly un-eaten this year since we didn’t have cows on it in the early spring. The cows are back but they are looking for the green grass beneath, under the thistles and Queen Anne’s Lace and browning orchard grass. They are up to their bellies in feed but they still stamp on the other side of the fence when I mow the lawn. The goldfinches teeter and balance atop the thistles and eat the seeds. I shoo the lazy, greedy cows away from my green lawn and back to their acres of perfectly good grazing.

I don’t know if the thistles in our pasture are native or non-native, but the butterflies stop by after the Goldfinch, and I’ve seen the hummingbird who visits my hanging flower baskets stop next at the purple flowers. Thistles are saving me money on my bird hobby because I stopped feeding hummingbirds years ago when I couldn’t keep up with the daily syrup refills, and this year I don’t keep the seed feeder full for the Goldfinch and grosbeak, the sparrows and Pine Siskin. I am glad to see they aren’t completely dependent on me. Not only are seeds expensive, but I am inconsistent.

Confession: last week while driving to town with a shopping list that included “black oil sunflower seeds” I thought, there surely is a cheaper way to feed the birds; so I googled it while driving 68 mph on Interstate 5. I am inconsistent and hypocritical, and one of my kids will read this and serve it up to me at an opportune time, but—there’s the truth. Google came back with several suggestions and I scanned through them in the bank parking lot. The best suggestion I could find was to buy shelled sunflower seeds. No shells would mean no mess and no waste, and “your feeders will remain full much longer” according to the article.

I’ve watched the thin-legged siskin kicking around in the seeds, belly deep in it like the cows in the field, searching for that perfect morsel. I have seen the towhee on the ground and watched her shovel through the remnants that fall from the feeder, kicking both black legs and scattering good seed along with discarded shells. I always leave a few sprouted seeds to grow into flowers, but I am irritated by the piles of seed-litter and I like the idea of no-waste food. I ordered a bag of shelled seeds while sitting in the parking lot of Costco.

This morning I filled one empty feeder with shelled seeds and one with the last of the black oil sunflower seeds from the co-op. Out the window of my writing space I am naming names and keeping track of the messiest offenders at the feeder with shells: the Goldfinches are little pigs; the grosbeak, with it’s bulkier beak and stout body, is carefully taking one at a time, turning away from the feeder, and politely separating shell from seed, letting the shell drop to the ground. A Black Phoebe, whom I haven’t noticed before, is sitting on the peak of the feeder in between flights to the lawn to gather insects. The feeder is half empty.

Outside my bedroom window a variety of finches are eating the shelled-seeds and chasing each other away from the six perches on the feeder. Male House Finches are running to and fro over all six sides to chase away the females. The innocent Mourning Dove titters around along the ground, presumably content with whatever it might graciously find.

When we first broke ground and started building our house eighteen years ago, there was no birdsong to be heard. Six years later when we finally moved in, I started putting out seeds and suet and I waited, hoping to be found by my feathered friends, and soon the trees along the creek were filled with music and the feeders were frequented by an assortment of new birds. We planted the Norway Maple in the corner of the yard and every year babies have taken flight out of its dense branches. These things make me happy.

But some baby birds fall to the ground before they ever catch flight, and I let the bird feeders run empty for days at a time.

Last week our other dog, not the terrier, dropped a dead bird at my feet and buried her head in my chest. There was no tail wagging, no proud stance or blank space for praise. I had been watering plants in the front yard and she was in the back. When I came around the house to the back patio, she immediately walked over to me and dropped the bird, stood on the top step, and pushed her head into my ribs. There were feathers under the living room window and a smudge where the bird had tried to fly through, so I knew she had not killed it, only picked it up off the ground. She pushed into me the way she does when she knows I need comforted. She is the most sensitive creature I know, and I’m telling you, she was sad about the bird. I was sad about the bird, too. Eighteen years ago when there was no house here, there were no birds dying from the slow brain bleed of a sudden thud against solid air.

My generosity is not cost effective and sometimes I wonder if it is even humane. Feeding birds is expensive. Watching birds die because they didn't expect a house in the middle of this pasture gives a little momentary pang of guilt. I weigh it all with the joy of watching the birds at the feeders and I guess in the end, all birds are dying, and all birds are cared for¹. Cost effective—what does that even mean? The birds eat easy meals. I enjoy watching them. The return on investment is not something I can measure.

Here I am at forty-eight, watching the birds; counting the cost. Lately I’ve been thinking how short life is, or can be, and realizing that my lifelong pursuit of ways to procrastinate joy really has to stop now, because tomorrow there could be a patch of solid air I didn’t see coming and how sad it would be to leave so many good things undone. This is how I want to look at it—to not be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with whatever good I can manage, at whatever cost².

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Speaking of birds ; ) Have you seen the resource my friends and I created? If you are a writer who wants to send your words out, we made the Let It Fly notebook to help you find landing places for your writing. For $10 you get a printable PDF designed to be used quarterly. Read about it here.

1. Matthew 6:26, NKJV "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

2. Romans 12:21 NKJV “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”