bluebirds Archives - NorthStarNature

We’re Just Like Birds

June 28, 2020 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

After last week’s post about flying dreams, I realized I had an accumulation of photos of the ‘real flyers’—the ones who inspire us to take off, fly high, and soar on the wind—in our dreams and metaphorically in our lives. They go where we cannot go without the aid of a ‘big silver bird.’ They seem to have a freedom and a reach that us ‘grounded’ creatures can only wistfully watch and long for—oh, to be as free and majestic as the Eagle!

And yet, as I looked at the photos, I realized that maybe birds are more like us than we realize (or we like them?) They like to hang out with their family and friends, and life is good on the water.

Some of them/us are loners—we don’t have mates or children or even many friends. We know how to be alone and how to be relatively okay with it. Inner life can take a higher priority than outer life.

Birds have curiosity, like most of us. What do I see? What do I hear? What does that mean for me and others?

They also can be startled, intimidated, territorial, fearful, protective, bullying, and loud. Sound familiar?

Birds spend a huge portion of their time and energy doing the work of providing food for themselves and their families. It takes concentration and patience, know-how and skill, and very often we and they are rewarded for our efforts. But not always…it also takes tenacity and resilience to keep trying when the opportunity slips away.

Housing is a big issue—is this going to be a good place to raise our family? Look it over, try it on, envision our future, determine the safety, can we afford it? Let’s make a nest. Let’s raise a family.

It takes an enormous amount of time, energy, fortitude, worms and bugs (and their for-human counterparts), sleeplessness (and sleep), learning, humbleness, mistakes, forgiveness, patience, and love to raise that family from infancy to independence. The birds have a compacted time frame in which to do so, yet they do it time and time again in each yearly cycle of their life span. They raise their children to fly. They teach them how to find their own food, to stay safe, to expand their knowledge. They teach them to be curious and wary, adventurous and prudent. They protect them the best they can.

They try to ward off those who would take advantage of their young ones with a fierce look and a strong beak.

They are observant and alert.

They model behavior, good and bad, with and without intent and consciousness.

They are proud of their fledglings.

And they love them.

Birds don’t spend most of their time in unfettered freedom, soaring the skies for fun and pleasure. They spend their time doing the day-to-day things that we do—working for food, shelter, and a place to raise young ones, and they use their innate tool of being able to fly in doing so. Maybe we aren’t so different from birds. Perhaps our freedom and reach extend along the ground we humbly inhabit instead of the heavens—to our families and friends, to the ones in solitude, and to the children in our lives. Maybe we are like the eagles—majestic and free.

Summer Solstice Snapshot

June 24, 2018 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

What happens on the first day of Summer? The Summer Solstice was Thursday, the 21st—the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Earth’s axis is most tilted toward the sun. It is when the sun rises before most of us do and sets not long before most of us go to bed. It is a day of long daylight, of energy, of evolution of the seasons. It is a day of new beginnings.

What happens on the first day of Summer in Minnesota? Fruit is forming, growing, and ripening—apples, blueberries, wild plums, and wild strawberries.

Tender new growth on the evergreen trees is starting to harden off, easing into the next stage of growth and development, stepping into its larger self.

Summer sunshine, blue skies, and white clouds outline and energize the trees.

On the first day of Summer, some flowers, like the Gas Plant, are already going to seed, while a whole passel are in full bloom or getting ready to bloom.

The late-planted garden is growing, as are the weeds that will need to be cleared out so the good stuff will grow and produce.

Bird parents are busy searching for insects to bring back to their hungry babies.

Broken remains of storm damage finally fell from a tree, days after the other storm debris had been cleaned up.

And then, just for a reality check, Summer throws in a little taste of what’s to come in a couple of months…

Late in the long day, the sun finally sets, the long twilight glows on, and the moon shines bright in the southern sky.

One notable Summer day, the Solstice, the official beginning of Summer, is like a birthday—remarkable in a way, but as common as every other day. It is a marker of seasons and new beginnings, a snapshot of the continuing development of all that is Nature and all that is Us. If we take the time to clear out the weeds and clean up the debris from the storms of our lives, we are energized. We can learn and grow and step into our larger selves. We are ready to bloom and ready to bear fruit. Shine on!

No Holding Back

May 6, 2018 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

“No matter how long the Winter, Spring is sure to follow.”

Three weeks ago we had a foot of snow. But Spring will no longer be held back! On Monday, two turkeys foraged along the road pecking at emerging leaves of green grass and tender new buds.

It was so wonderful to see the grass finally turning green and the chives pushing their way up!

Two visitors passed through on their way North—a White-crowned Sparrow and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.

April’s end-of-month full moon illuminated buds on a tree, and a colorful sunset shone through the silhouette of trees where soon leaves will occlude the splendor.

The Bluebirds returned this week! Their swift, swooping dives and chattering songs fill the front yard as they check out the nesting boxes.

On Thursday, I finally got to my annual Earth Day ditch clean-up. Once again, with most of the trash being plastic, I urge everyone to ‘ditch’ plastic shopping bags and use paper or reusable bags. It will make a difference! I also found this unfortunate creature who didn’t make it through the winter—one of our resident opossums who waddle back and forth from the quarry to the woods.

By Friday, the Forsythia and Bergenia were blooming! The lemony yellow Forsythia flowers shone in the morning sun along with one orange fall leaf that had held on through the winter.

The Bergenias send up a study flower stalk between green leaves that have weathered the winter and those that dried and died. No holding back.

Ferns with their rolled fiddleheads emerged by warm rocks, casting shadows just as intriguing as the fiddleheads themselves.

The most amazing bud to me is the terminal bud of a Buckeye tree. I’m always incredulous that such a huge amount of leaves can be coiled into one bud—and they are beautiful as they unfurl!

One sign of Spring that I always look for is the ‘green blush’ of new leaves on the Aspen trees down by the river. Thursday, no green blush, but Friday morning, it was there!

The floppy, fragrant petals of the Star Magnolia opened on Saturday. So beautiful!

For the first time, I saw a Baltimore Oriole come to our feeder! No holding back the Goodness of Spring!

I think most of us up North would agree it’s been a long winter, but Spring sure has been sweet this week. It’s as if all the power and potential can no longer be held back, even as the last piles of blackened snow melt and the frost recedes from the ground—Spring has come bursting forth! There are many times in life when we feel the holding back and comfort of what is known along with the pull of a new adventure. A baby is happy to sit or crawl until the urge to walk implants itself in mind and body—there is no holding back. Children are eager to learn and ‘do it themselves’ after years of parents doing it for them and teaching them motor and mind skills. Adolescents oscillate between being a dependent child and pushing their way to adult independence. At some point, there is no holding back the desire to live one’s own life. A similar thing happens in mid-life after decades of striving, achieving, raising children, putting plans on hold, paying bills and doing the necessary matters. We wonder if we have lost ourselves, if there is something more to life, if we have fulfilled our potential—we forage for new ways or remember something from the past that we have carried with us like a lone, orange leaf. Some parts of our lives die—by our own hand or by the hand of a higher power. We explore intriguing shadows that lead us back to our own intriguing selves. No matter our age or circumstance, we are beautiful as we unfurl.

A Total Eclipse of the Eclipse

August 27, 2017 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I had high expectations of Monday’s eclipse. The media had prepared us well with scientific information, beautiful illustrations and photos of previous celestial wonders, and Amazon had plenty of viewing glasses to purchase. The Great American Eclipse was to make its way across the heart of our country in its totality. Minnesota wouldn’t see complete darkness, but an almost total eclipse is exciting, nonetheless. The sun was shining on my Monday morning walk…then the clouds rolled in. As E-time approached, thunder rolled and rumbled, and rain fell, along with my high hopes.

One of our Bluebirds of happiness flew to the Maple just outside the window, perching on the side of the tree, reminding me that blue skies would come again. (Tuesday’s sky was blue and cloudless.)

Even in the midst of my dashed eclipse expectations, there was tropical beauty right outside my door in the rain—a banana tree and the pretty pink flowers of Mandevilla.

Beyond the hype and excitement of the eclipse this week was the reality of the waning days of summer. First day of school pictures filled my Facebook feed. Cooler than normal temperatures necessitated bringing out the fleeces and sweatshirts. The tomatoes are finally ready to eat! The apples are turning red. Sumac leaves are beginning to turn crimson. Wild plums are ripening.

And our first ever hazel nuts are forming under the curved leaves and inside the fringed husks!

I never say summer is sweet on the humid, hot days (I mean, what do I expect?!), but as August winds down and Summer Sweet blooms and releases its fragrant scent, I am reminded that summer is indeed a sweet time of year.

On the other side of dashed expectations and humid-drenched disappointments is surprise and possibility. What is eating our Milkweed? Monarch caterpillars, of course. Not this time! The hungry, similar-colored caterpillars are the larval stage of the Milkweed Tiger Moth (a very drab, gray-colored moth.)

And look at this delicate web of water droplets I found in the grass below the milkweed!

At the junction of old and new soil and grass around our patio, a fungus grew that looked like a worn, well-oiled leather catcher’s mitt. Where did that come from?

Then there is the delicate surprise of a common object seen in a different light—the bird’s nest bundle of seeds of Queen Anne’s lace and a pincushion center of Black-eyed Susan.

There’s a book titled Expectation Hangover by Christine Hassler. I haven’t read it, but she defines Expectation Hangover as “the myriad of undesirable feelings or thoughts present when one or a combination of the following things occur: a desired outcome does not occur; a desired outcome does occur but does not produce the feelings or results we expected; our personal and/or professional expectations are unmet by ourselves or another; an undesired, unexpected event occurs that is in conflict with what we want or planned.” I’ve had a few of those in my lifetime and know very well the toll it takes on time, energy, and self-worth. My high hopes of experiencing the eclipse were tempered by the meteorological predictions that didn’t favor clear skies on that day. It’s important to keep our expectations grounded in reality—what’s the science behind this or what does the history of this person show us or what can we really afford? I’m not sure it’s our expectations per se that get us into trouble, but our attachment to them. Those attachments can run deep and profound to the very soul of who we think we are. But Nature teaches us that even in the certainty of summer morphing into fall, we can discover new surprises and see things in a different light—like we’ve never seen them before. Expectations and possibilities with a grounding of reality—it’s a recipe for an awe-inspiring eclipse (or not), a sweet summer, and an authentic life.

Location, Location, Location

May 21, 2017 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I love this time of year! After a bare, white and gray winter, the greenness seems amazing to my eyes. From one year to the next I forget how many of our flowers bloom in May. The colors, shapes, and fragrances are delightful to the senses. This location we call home suits us well right now amidst the trees, among the flowers, and along with the wild creatures.

In a bird’s world, our yard and woods are a pretty good location to set up house, also. There are eight pre-made houses to choose from, trees of all sorts in which to build a nest, a river nearby and various bird baths for water and bathing, and an endless supply of insects, seeds, and nesting material. Unfortunately, in the bird real estate business, we have a tenacious bully. The House Wren is an aggressive competitor for nests and will destroy eggs and young of other birds in order to take over that nesting spot. Wrens are tiny birds, about five inches from head to tail, weighing only as much as two quarters. Their exuberant, gurgling song is loud and persistent. The Wrens show up a couple of weeks after the Bluebirds, who have already staked out the location that suits them best. Wrens are the main source of nest failure in some areas for Bluebirds, Tree Swallows and Chickadees, but we witnessed some bold resistance to the real estate bully. One of the wren houses hangs from the maple tree outside our dining room, and we happened to see a flurry of bird activity around the little house. A male Bluebird chased the Wren into the house, then perched on the roof, seemingly daring him to come out again.

Then he even peered into the house.

Eventually the Bluebird left to attend to his own nest, and the Wren cautiously popped out of the house onto the ‘porch.’

A minute later, another flurry of wings–this time from a Tree Swallow defending its nest from the scalawag.

The male Wren will find a number of nesting spots and add twigs to them when he first stakes out his territory; later the courted female will inspect the nesting spots. With all the negative reinforcement to stealing the others’ nests, the Wrens decided to build their nest in their hide-away place. Both busy Wrens gathered twigs to add to the nest.

The ground below the house is scattered with small sticks that didn’t quite make it to the inside.

One of the most interesting nest-building practices of the House Wren is adding a spider egg sac to the final nesting materials. It is speculated that after hatching, the young spiders eat any mites or parasites that tend to invade the nest when the young birds inhabit it. Once the Wrens lay their eggs, the real estate battle abruptly ends; meanwhile, the Bluebird stands watch.

I’ve lived in a number of locations in four different states during my life so far. Two of those states are birthplaces—mine and Chris’ and the kids’, which make them inherently special. Each place also has a unique culture—Scandinavian, Pennsylvania Dutch, crossroads of America diversity, and German Catholic. Each location has a beautiful ecosystem—prairie, foothills, rolling farm country, and lakes and woods. Truthfully, I have loved them all. Sometimes it’s not so much living in a place that suits us well but rather to become who we are supposed to be. And places, cultures, ecosystems, and the people we meet there help us to do that. We learn to attend to our own nests, to defend the things we hold dear, to stand up to bullies, and to watch over this beautiful, green Earth.

The Courtship of Spring—Love Letters to Us

April 30, 2017 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood. –Laurence Sterne

Downstairs there are two cardboard boxes full of hundreds of letters from our courtship—one marked Letters to Denise, the other, Letters to Chris. In this era of smartphones and other technology, who can even imagine such a thing!? We met one May night, one one-in-a-million chance meeting, one would-you-like-to-dance swirl around the dance floor. He was headed back home to Missouri from a northern fishing trip with his Dad, and I was out with my friend Patty talking about her upcoming wedding. He gave me his temporary fishing license with his name and address on it and said if I’d write to him, he would write back to me. So I did. That began our two-year, 400-miles-apart courtship.

Letters are slow—slow to be written with pencil or pen and slow to be delivered by the US Postal Service. But I still recall the excitement of opening the mailbox to find a letter from Chris, unsealing the envelope, reading his words and turning over the pieces of paper in discovery of this man. Many things we wrote about were mundane—the weather, what we ate for supper, what tv shows we watched. But letter by letter, slowly and surely, his character and values emerged. Most of the time when we did see one another in person, we stayed at our parents’ houses. I spent time washing dishes with his Mom, held the ladder for his Dad as he put up Christmas lights and told stories, met his four older brothers, their wives and children, and spent precious time with his sister. Chris went duck hunting with my Dad, brought gifts of plants for my Mom, and made my siblings laugh. Our courtship was slow and lovely and difficult and richly exciting as we anticipated each new discovery and the life we would have together.

The courtship of Spring is also the slow emerging of a wondrous season. Weeks after the calendar Spring, tiny, golden leaves unfold from a Ninebark shrub.

Rhubarb, the delicious, tart fruit of the North, is pushing its way up out of the ground…

…while seeds of abundant greens wait for warmer weather and germination.

Setbacks happen in even the best of courtships—we were smiling from the warmth until a wave of cold air moved in this week, icing over the birdbath and constricting the leaves and flowers that were intent on opening.

Even the bluebird, all poufed up from the cold, was wondering what had happened to Spring.

Setbacks are temporary, and early bloomers like Epimedium and Lilacs can tolerate the cold better than others.

Day by day, Spring reveals new surprises—blooming Vinca vine and fairyland Mayapples.

Ferns unfurl tête à tête…

…and Mourning Doves and other birds pair up in courtship.

Spring delivers a plethora of quiet, slow unfoldings as each tree and plant comes ‘back to life’ after a dormant winter, as each pair of birds and animals prepare for mating and raising young ones. The courtship cannot be one-sided—it takes the attention and appreciation of a beloved for the other to be seen and understood. Each Spring we are privy to thousands of tiny miracles right before our eyes. Do we see them? As we swirl around the dance floor of Earth, tête à tête with Spring and with the beloveds of our choosing, it behooves us to remember that courtships include more than just the pair. We are part of a family, a friend group, a community of like and unlike, and finally, a small part of the entire Whole. While in our mundanity, during our chilly setbacks and mistaken attentions that alarm, let us notice the quiet miracles, the revealing values and character, and the discoveries that let us know we’re on the right track, that’s there’s no turning back, that we’re all in this together.

This Huge Nest Called Earth

April 22, 2017 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

–William Wordsworth

Last weekend I was off the internet for three and a half days, and I feel ridiculous for even saying that like it’s some big deal, since I have lived two-thirds of my life on Earth without that technology. (And having lived two-thirds of my life without it, I can honestly proclaim that the internet is a-mazing!) I didn’t miss it; though along with not having tv, I did have a slight feeling of missing out on what was going on in the world. But since most of what’s on the news right now gives me a sinking feeling in my stomach, I was better off not knowing. So what did I do? I visited with my Mom who came for the weekend. I cooked food for our Easter celebration. I laughed with my family around the dinner table. I read a little bit of the Sunday paper. And we all went outside to hike, to take pictures, to walk the dog, to bask in the warm sunshine on a wind-cooled day, and to revel in the emerging signs of Spring.

We hiked at our nearby Eagle Park and were disappointed when we saw no movement of gray fluff or adult guardian in the huge eagle’s nest—the second of three years now with no viable eaglets. We wondered whether it was the age of the parent eagles or if the nearby Sauk River food source was contaminated with something that interfered with the egg development. (Happily, the other nearby eagle’s nest did have a couple of gray fluffy babies and a watchful parent.) The bright-light sunshine cast shadows on the tomb-size boulders scattered throughout the park.

A clump of Pasque flowers, also called Easter flower and prairie crocus, bloomed along the trail.

Golden stands of last year’s prairie grasses waved in the wind with hints of green growing up between them.

Nodding heads of Prairie Smoke flower buds hung from early Spring foliage.

We saw the first Bluebird of Spring at Eagle Park, then later delighted that our pair had returned to the yard to check out the houses Chris hastily put up.

Our Spring crocuses were an absolute sight for sore eyes, a shocking display of regal purple, pure white, and purple striped color after a winter of gray, white, and brown. I couldn’t help but smile and marvel at the sight of them!

Every year, as we come forth into the light of Spring, we are inundated with marvelous, amazing examples of creation, renewal, and transformation. The old, golden grasses give way to the growing green. The birds return to their northern breeding grounds and prepare for raising their young. The miraculous perennials push through the chilly soil for another year of growth and flowering and bearing fruit. We are just another part of Nature’s transforming miracle. We are Easter people. We come together with family and friends. We prepare nourishing food to share with one another. We commune around the table with prayer, talk, and laughter. And then we are drawn outside to commune with Nature, with that from which we come and whom sustains us. In September of 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill establishing the Assateague Island Seashore National Park with these words, “If future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as God really made it, not just as it looked when we got through with it.” Through the miracle of the internet, I commission all of us to become guardians of our little parts of this huge nest called Earth. Happy Earth Day to us all!

A Yard Full of Beautiful Bluebirds

October 12, 2016 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

—Mahatma Gandhi

There have been times in my life when I wondered if I would ever be happy again. Those were struggling times, deep and dark times in my soul. I couldn’t wish, pray, think, or act my way out of the darkness. So I just went through it–like those long tunnels under the mountains on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. No matter how much you want to see the light or maybe want to turn around, you can’t—you just have to move forward and travel through it.

I thought the Bluebirds had left our place and migrated south–I hadn’t seen them for quite a while. And then Friday I noticed the yard was full of them! They perched and swooped and chirped like a playground full of children! Bluebirds of Happiness!

They were probably gathering up for migration, filling up on their fall diet of sumac and chokecherry seeds–after a summer of eating insects.

I was amused by how this little guy looked all around from his perch on the Maple tree right outside our window.

A male and female flew to an inverted tub to drink the rainwater that had accumulated in the little troughs. What beautiful birds!

Most Eastern Bluebirds migrate some distance to the south, but not all of them. Researchers are not sure why some stay in the northern climate during the harsh, cold winter. I wonder if their winters are as bleak as my struggling times were. But struggling times are learning times, a vast and precious rearrangement of our thoughts, words, and actions, all precipitated through the troughs of our feelings. We drink them up, and they sustain us. Aristotle wrote, “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” Not what other people do, not with how much stuff we have, not with who wins the election. Alignment to harmony equals happiness. A yard full of beautiful Bluebirds is just icing on the cake!

Bluebird of Happiness

July 21, 2015 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

The BLUE-BIRD carries the sky on his back. –Henry David Thoreau

Flashes of blue can be seen in our yard at any time of the day. This is the first year a pair of Eastern Bluebirds has used one of our bluebird houses for their grassy nest. We have four houses placed around the yard, but the location has to be just right for bluebirds. The house wrens are not so picky so have usurped a number of the bluebird houses, even though they have their own petite abodes in the maple trees. Bluebirds can have more than one successful brood each year, so this one in mid-July may be their second brood.

Both the brightly colored male and the more subdued female hunt for insects to feed their young. They perch high on electric lines, in trees, or on posts. They spy their prey from sixty or more feet away, then swoop to the ground to grab the unsuspecting insect and quickly fly back to their perch. Most of the time, the parents alight on their house or on a nearby post right before flying into the nest with the food.

Countless insects of all sorts are delivered to the babies’ gaping mouths…

…and just three days later, they have opened their eyes and developed more feathers. Sixteen to twenty-one days after hatching, these helpless chicks will fly from the nest.

Bluebirds have long been a symbol of happiness, hope, and renewal. Legends, poems, plays, songs, and stories have been written about the inspiring bluebird. What is it about these beautiful little thrushes that have aroused such appeal and even have prompted a National Bluebird of Happiness Day on September 24th? They are a welcome harbinger of spring after a long, cold winter. Their brilliant azure color is uncommon in the natural world, so the flashes of blue are noticeable against the green. The population of bluebirds severely declined up to the late 1970’s due to loss of nesting habitat and nest competition from starlings and sparrows. The North American Bluebird Society was formed in 1978 to place bluebird nesting boxes across the country, and since then the bluebird population has recovered. Do we appreciate something even more once it was almost lost? Or is it the feeling of a blue-sky day, when the air is crisp and clear and the sun warm upon our faces, that is evoked when we look at the sky the bluebird carries on his back? When I see the flash of blue, I feel a deep happiness to have such beautiful birds living in our yard. When I see the parents working so hard to provide food for their babies, I feel hope that another generation will populate our natural world. And I carry that happiness and hope to you so that we may all experience soul-filling renewal. What do you carry on your back for the whole world to see?

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