birds

Tropical Storm Isaias – Day 632

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment
Photo: L. Weikel

Wow. Well, I mentioned in last night’s post that here in Pennsylvania we’re not used to tropical storms maintaining their ferocity as they march into our area from the south or tornado warnings beeping out on our phones and warning us to ‘take appropriate cover.’ Enter Tropical Storm Isaias – yet another reason to wonder just what we did to so profoundly piss off 2020.

Who’d have imagined a tornado would touch down at  the hospital in our county seat of Doylestown? The storm ripped off part of the roof of the on-site daycare center, damaged another pavilion, and tossed about and upended six cars in the parking lot. And that’s just one instance among many reports of a devastating number of trees uprooted and creeks and other bodies of water blowing past their flood stages and inundating everything in their path.

And it does sound as if the full moon did indeed exacerbate the impact this storm had when it slammed into the North Carolina coast as a Category 1 hurricane last night. Storm surges have been devastating and well over 3.5 million households are without electricity. It’s all a bit hard to fathom – a tropical storm at the beginning of August.

Stress Eaters

Just after the height of the storm hit, I walked out onto our porch to take some photos of the storm water cascading across our property. As I stood there in the pouring rain, I was joined by Spartacus. Instead of acting fearful of the storm, he quite adorably seemed more concerned than anything else.

Spartacus – Storm Watcher – Photo: L. Weikel

Then I noticed something even odder. There were a bunch of birds at our feeders! That was pretty much the last thing I expected to see in the midst of the storm. Granted, the absolute worst had probably just peaked – but the rain was still pounding down and strong gusts of wind were whipping the willow behind our barn and making the rest of the trees dance very hard to keep up.

Yet there were these birds, crowding several of my feeders. My heart went out to them as I sort of chuckled to myself. I could relate. Clearly they were stress-eating; stuffing in as much as they could while the getting was good. Living for the moment.

Stress eaters – Photo: L. Weikel

Rampaging Tohickon

After the storm passed and bright sunshine made everything look and feel as though it’d just been power-washed, the after-effects were startling. The Tohickon overflowed its banks and was rapaciously engaged in transporting logs and all sorts of other bobbing doo-dads and detritus to the Delaware River.

Many roads were impassable, either as a result of flooded creeks and streams or massive trees giving up the ghost and dragging electrical wires down with them.

The Delaware practically had enough trees floating down it to qualify as a forest itself.

Tohickon Creek – Photo: L. Weikel

It’s Only August

While I’m profoundly grateful we were spared the worst of it, I have to admit, this does give me paust. It’s only August. That seems pretty darn early to me to be dealing with a storm of this magnitude. Given the attitude of 2020 so far, I don’t think I want to challenge worse – that’s for sure.

It’s kind of amazing to contemplate just how devastatingly effective Mother Earth is at putting us in our place. It doesn’t take much. We really are a vulnerable species when you get right down to it, which makes me wonder. Is that why we’re often such bullies when it comes to Nature?

I hope everyone is safe and dry. I’d say I hope you’re warm, too – but if you have no electricity, warm may not exactly be the state you prefer. I hope you’re safe, dry, and comfortable. Take good care of yourselves – and don’t forget to feed your birds.

Casualty of Tropical Storm Isaias – Photo: L. Weikel

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Feeding the Birds – Day 496

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment
Feeding the Birds – Photo: L. Weikel

Feeding the Birds

Some of you may remember my semi-flip out back in September when suddenly all the birds not only went silent but actually left the premises. It was a long 20 days or so before they finally started returning, much to my huge relief. It’s possible, I suppose, that they all just suddenly discovered plentiful seeds and other treats somewhere else. But the abruptness and totality of their departure – and the similar abruptness of their return – just seemed kind of weird.

I do intend to pay attention this fall, to see if they make it into an annual habit.

Looking For Normal

This past week felt like I was trapped in a time warp. Every day I had to make a concerted effort to steady and ground myself – almost as if I’d awakened in the midst of an ocean and had to regain my sea legs before I could walk into the next room. But it wasn’t a physical wavering. It was a psychological one – or perhaps even deeper; perhaps an existential one.

So many assumptions and fundamental beliefs I’ve held about our country and our ability to respond to any challenge – no matter how grave, how daunting, or how threatening – have been shattered this week. And the worst part about that? The worst part is knowing that it was completely avoidable. The worst part is knowing that our lack of preparation and ability to respond (responsibility) was facilitated by the deliberate obfuscation of those at the highest levels of our government.

And people are starting to get sick and die in numbers that grow exponentially, daily, as a result.

So? Having no real power to effect meaningful change until Election Day, I need to look for normal amidst the chaos. Looking for normal yesterday afternoon meant feeding my birds.

Everyday Joy

The temperature outside climbed to 78 degrees yesterday. Needing to ground myself and reconnect to what’s real and sustainable, I found myself sitting on my porch in the sunshine, reveling in birdsong. For a precious few minutes, I was able to wrap myself in a cocoon of delight as I listened to the robins and the fish crows trill and grok, respectively. I watched both two red shouldered woodpeckers and a downy cling to my front feeder and push around a chickadee, then heard but could not see-to-save-my-life the producer of the unmistakable, heavy-billed <<thwacking>> of a pileated just beyond the garage.

I watched goldfinches, house finches, sparrows and wrens flit and flutter amongst the shelter of the carcass of our Christmas tree, which we prop against one of the maples in our yard each year to give them additional cover from the sharp-shinned and red-tailed hawks that patrol the area. Nuthatches marched upside down on the maples and I even glimpsed either a blue bird or an indigo bunting before it disappeared into the thicket along our driveway.

My effort to reclaim normal consisted of the measured, meditative act of filling our birdfeeders and feeding the birds.

Pandemic Partners

I hope I’ll be able to keep my feeders filled over the coming months. The joy and sense of connection with All Life that birds give me is abundantly healing and centering. I recently came across this great article with excellent tips on how to make our yards welcoming, safe, and enticing to these wonderful creatures. It affirmed why Karl and I are so lucky to have so many feathered friends sharing this land we call home.

So many of the suggestions in this article are sound common sense, but they’re also little ways of changing our relationship with birds and Mother Earth that help bring us into balance with Her.

And ultimately, as we make our way through the devastation of this pandemic, coming back into balance with Mother Earth will be key. Celebrating and appreciating our birds can remind us of that.

Goldfinch – Photo: L. Weikel

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Hammering It Home – Day 437

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment
Photo: Audubon.org

Hammering It Home

I had to laugh earlier today. A couple different friends of mine shared a quiz on Facebook propounded by The Cornell Lab Publishing Group. As a rule, I don’t take quizzes on Facebook because a technologically savvy friend of mine warned me that quizzes are just insidious means of harvesting our personal data.

But I trust The Cornell Lab of Ornithology organization (they have a wonderful Raptor ID app I use on my phone), and since the quiz takes you to the site of this reputable non-profit (as opposed to the usual anonymous or sketchy sites that are usually associated with ‘quizzes’ on FB), I figured I would give it a try.

WHO Are You?

Basically, you’re asked a variety of questions about your own personality traits, which are then sorted and categorized and result in you being ‘matched’ to the bird that most closely exhibits your constellation of traits.

After taking the quiz and reading my result, I have to admit I was quite impressed to realize that there are a total of 22 different birds this quiz could have identified me as sharing characteristics. That’s quite an assortment!

I could see the thought and care that went into developing this quiz and how the pairings with our bird ‘sisters’ (or brothers) makes sense.

You Guessed It

Naturally, given my posts the last two nights, it will come as no surprise that I was identified as sharing the most characteristics with the Red-Tailed Hawk.

No, this wasn’t a fait accompli. Not in the least. (Remember, I wrote a book called Owl Medicine*, my website is owlmedicine.com, and my healing practice is Owl Medicine Shamanic Healing.) Yeah – no. It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit if owl had shown up.

But let’s be honest. There’s a message being sent to me at the moment, and Spirit is knocking on all the doors (and maybe even some windows) to get my attention.

From a Shamanic Perspective

On a shamanic note, I want to make it clear that this little quiz, while fun and great for the way it matches characteristics and the cool way it gets us to think and care about the birds in our environment, actually has nothing to do with determining your ‘power animal.’ That’s a whole different kettle of fish. (Not to deliberately mix metaphors, but there you go.)

That said, taking a quiz like this can be an opportunity for your power animal to show up and say hi to you. (For instance, if you’ve journeyed on your own and retrieved a power animal for yourself – or if I or someone else has journeyed on your behalf and brought a power animal back for you that happens to be of the feathered variety – this could be a way for it to show up in your life and serve as a reminder that it wants to be in deeper relationship with you. Or it could just be showing up to remind you that it’s always there for you – and not to forget it.)

Or taking a quiz like this could be a way for an ally who wants to make a point of getting through your thick skull that it wants to work with you, or that you need to pay attention to it, to make yet another appearance in your life. You know, hammering it home so you can stop denying that you’re getting a message.

Yep. I suppose it could be that, too.

Hawk feather – Photo: L. Weikel

*affiliate link

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A Disturbing Observation – Day 325

Posted on by Lisa Weikel Leave a comment
Hummingbird – Photo: L. Weikel

A Disturbing Observation

Over the course of the past two or three weeks, I’ve made a disturbing observation. All of a sudden the vast majority of our birds are gone.

Gone!

The weirdest thing is that they seemed to have ‘flown the coop’ within a day or so of the publication of an article that revealed that there are now 29% (which equates to 2.9 billion) fewer birds in the United States since 1970.

It’s as if the birds in our yard heard the news and decided to get the heck out of Dodge.

I may make a joke about it, but I’m actually profoundly concerned. And freaked out, to be honest, over what’s happening specifically in my yard.

Not For Lack of Food

Believe me, this cannot be blamed on me failing to fill the birdfeeders, either. I think that’s almost the worst part. Because that’s something that can easily be remedied.

I can tell it’s not even a case of them suddenly becoming shy and not wanting to visit the feeders while I’m on the porch (which has never been the case anyway), because even when I leave for the day or work inside, the feeders haven’t been touched – in hours.

Photo: L. Weikel

Another Case of Noticing the Silence

I’ll have to go back and count how many posts I’ve written that contain references to or are all about the birds in our yard. As any of you who’ve been reading my posts throughout this 1111 Devotion/Act of Power extravaganza know, my birds are precious to me.

The weird thing is, just like the monotonous and relentless sound of autumn crickets and the irritating sound of dysfunction emanating from my refrigerator, the chatter, clatter, and flutter of the myriad birds that usually visit our feeders is something one takes for granted and almost – almost – grows immune to. But the silence would descend upon the feeders occasionally, and once I paid attention, I would almost always be able to track a hawk hanging out near the barn or on a telephone pole across the road.

Indeed, when I first started noticing the dearth of chirping going on at our feeders a few weeks ago, I commented to Karl that “there much be a hawk nearby.” It was weird, though. No matter how much I paid attention, I could not track a hawk. And the smaller birds that almost never leave the feeders for very long at all, sparrows and goldfinches, but also ALL my woodpeckers, chickadees, and nuthatches are not here.

Freaking Out

Full disclosure? Just writing this post and enumerating even some of the birds I’ve been sharing my life with and realize are now missing is making my heart race.

Today? I kid you not, I saw ONE blue jay and ONE rather ragged looking goldfinch. THIS. IS. NOT. NORMAL.

Something feels like it’s sinking in with me. Is this something much larger than I realized? I don’t know, but I would like to ask all of you to check in on your feathered neighbors. Make a point of noticing whether your feeders are requiring fewer fill ups. Pay attention to who’s showing up in your vicinity.

I have a terrible feeling. Please, please, let this not be the beginning of our Silent Spring.

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