Invasion

Starlings arrived today, targeting my feeders with precision as they launched their invasion.

I almost made it to the end of winter without them, though in recent days, I've spotted them in near-spring migration, hundreds upon hundreds of them blacking the sky as they soar in a northerly direction, stretching from horizon to horizon.

Throughout the winter I nurtured the presence of my song birds, the fiery red cardinal, the unique etching of a chickadee's feathers, the stark geometry of the red-headed woodpecker. Each has its own language, its own song, its own brand of morning and evening chatter. The starlings, though, are noise. Discordant, squawking noise.

Apart from their distinctive racket, they have an extraordinary ability to arrive by the hundreds and clean out a feeder in half an hour. I had to shut the kitchen down, at least for a while.

My "regulars" are quite skilled at picking my feeders clean in a day; I am used to that pace. But a half-hour? I am also used to these regulars disappearing when the local hawks light on the trees beside the feeder. After all, no self-respecting songbird wants to be brunch. The arrival of the starlings came quickly; hopefully their departure will follow with similar haste, though our extreme cold weather and back to back snows will undoubtedly draw them to both the shelter of my feeding area and the black sunflower seeds it contains.

In truth, though, as I watched the free-for-all that erupted between the locals and the starlings, I became amused by just how territorial my faithful friends were. The cardinals fluttered wings to knock off the starlings, the finches, sparrows and chickadees ran interference. Hard yellow beaks pecked at dark black ones, challenging seed for seed. The faithful asserted their dominance, and the starlings' presence was short-lived, at least for today.

I know it will be a few weeks before the competition settles back to a semblance of normal, and I await the arrival of my other spring birds, including the bluebirds my little house has attracted. By then, the starlings will have move on to freshly tilled fields replete with seed corn and soybeans. Once again, I will have music -- and nothing but music -- at my feeders.

Letters. Emails. Phone calls. Words fly from mid-Tennessee to New England these past few weeks in a flurry of condolences, wrapped in a shawl of sadness embroidered with memories of too many yesterdays.

It seems that such losses occur in clusters, in groups or two or three or four, sometimes more, before the waiting game begins again. It comes with a certain age, though now that I am breaching the "age" the age of these lost friends seems to be younger and younger. Or is that simply my view from this new pinnacle of 60?

I found myself writing more letters, sitting at my mother's drop leaf desk (recently refinished, all traces of fire finally finally finally removed) from the wood. I pull stamps from one drawer, envelopes from a cubby, address labels from a small interior shelf. Though I've tried to use technology (Hi-Speed net running at less than the speed of dial-up most days), I find myself reverting to hand-written missives, seeking the comfort of sending something I've touched into the hands of another.

In the past few weeks, contemplation has been the order of the day: once I get my body moving in these days of interrupted sleep, oddly-timed naps and nagging pain at inopportune times (all the time in truth), I find myself doing a few chores almost in reverse before settling into pieces of silence. I sit alone with my thoughts. It is part of my process of change, that is to say, dealing with change. And loss. And grief.

I haven't felt much like writing for public consumption these past few days.

Curled up on the couch, I pull back the curtain, looking for "specks" of expected snow, hoping for a dusting that will make the world brighter for a bit. February and March are otherwise so brown and gray here in these days just before daffodils and magnolias.

I sift through random photos unearthed in the process of filled the desk, of assigning places within. Each photo holds a story, and I make a plan to identify them all, a process enabling memory, not just for myself but for those who follow. I remember sitting pen in hand with my mother, when her mind still had some clarity, making notations on dozens of photos.

With each memory that passes through my hands, I work consciously not mulling over sorrow but focusing on the joys that each lost soul of these past weeks, brought into my life. I, and all of us who knew them, are the better for it. We've held them all for a very long time, gladly.