Tag: Birding

First Bird of the New Year 2025

​I woke on New Year’s Day 2025 and was almost nervous about what bird I would see first. It’s unusual for me to feel anxious before I look to the skies for that first omen of the new year, but as I looked out the windows there was nothing. No birds, no squirrels (that was my animal of the year twice) in fact the winter bare yard was utterly quiet. I paced through the house the only human awake with the three kittens trailing me, I’d learn later that Magnus, our oldest rescue at 6, was tucked up in bed with my husband pinning him in place for a late winter sleep in. I went to my office to fill the bird feeders there and again nothing stirring, not even a titmouse. Then I heard a thunk-thunk-thunk on the only feeder that still had something it, the suet feeder.

I knew from the sound that it was either a woodpecker or a starling. I didn’t want starlings, I spend too much time fighting with them in our nest boxes and them emptying our feeders in huge bullying flocks. I hoped for a Yellow-shafted flicker, our largest regularly visiting woodpecker, but they’re larger than the feeder and since I still couldn’t see our thunking visitor I knew it wasn’t that, or a red-bellied woodpecker, but as I crept closer the bird was still hidden from sight, so the list thinned even more. I was able to creep within inches of the window because the feeder hid me from the small bird’s sight line. I was almost a hundred percent sure when I finally caught a glimpse of the black and white body hanging on the suet feeder. My first bird of the year is Downy Woodpecker. The moment I saw it I felt calm, all the nervousness evaporated. I felt grounded and full of a deep contentment. It was an unusually strong and comforting reaction to the year’s first bird, but I’ll take it.

Downy Woodpecker by Gerald A. DeBoer, Shutterstock

Downy Woodpecker will be my theme for this year. What does that mean? I can start with metaphysics or with science. For the metaphysical I start with ANIMAL-SPEAK and ANIMAL-WISE by Ted Andrews. All woodpeckers are about rhythm: finding a rhythm for your life that works for you. They beat their own drum against trees, drainpipes, and other manmade surfaces. It’s a way of communicating to their mates and declaring territory. That’s not in Andrews’ books but you can find that and more at allaboutbirds.org from Cornell University, or abcbirds.org from American Bird Conservancy, and other places like the Audubon Society. Look for books that feature your bird, its habitat, its favorite food, or anything that catches your imagiantion and makes you think of the bird.

Downies are North America’s smallest woodpecker between the sizes of a sparrow and an American Robin. Being so small means, they can get insects in places that all the larger woodpeckers can’t like the stalks of plants that we’ve left for the winter in our garden, or the thinnest of tree branches. Imagine a woodpecker small enough to feed on the same plants that American goldfinches use though they go after the seed heads and the Downies are after the insects. What insights can I take away from the above for my year? Find your niche and stick to it because that’s where your food/treasure lies?

Downies also join mixed flocks of chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice in the winter which allows them to forage for food with more eyes looking out for danger, so maybe the message is also about cooperation? Working in a group? But deeper dive into the biology side and I find out that Downies also watch where white-breasted nuthatches hide their seed caches and raid them cleaning out the winter horde of their flock mate, so maybe it’s not about group dynamics? Sometimes a cool science fact is just that, it’s cool or fun, but not metaphysically significant.

I’ll be meditating and journaling on exactly what Downy Woodpecker’s message is for me this year, but for now knowing this is my theme for 2025 is enough. What was your first bird, or animal of the year? Domestic animals that you live with do not count. Happy New Year everyone.

First Bird of the Year 2023

What was your first bird of the year? The first bird you saw outside on New Year’s Day. Mine was cardinal for the second year in a row, but 2022 it was a single scarlet male the only color in a winter landscape full of snow. This year the day was gray looking more like late November here than December. Three female cardinals fluttered around the bird feeders their soft brownish tan bodies with the tips of faint red at crest, wing and tail blending into the dead leaves and bare trees so that only their movement betrayed them. The first bird traditionally tells us what the coming year will be like, or what will be important to us. I have had January firsts where the birds all hid and I saw mammals, squirrels one year, and a cat one year. But it’s usually a bird, then you have to figure out what the message is for the year. Squirrels for me are to balance work and play better. Cat, was a sign to ask my allergist if I could have my first cat. That was a really wonderful moment after twenty years of allergy shots. Doves usually mean it’s going to be a year of matters of the heart, or issues associated with Goddess. Cardinals usually mean I need to be willing to be seen more, to stand out and say, look at me! It’s a lesson I struggle with like most writers, because on one hand we want our books to be wildly popular and sell tons, and make us tons of money to go with all those sales, but we are also usually introverts and shy, or at least more comfortable at our desks than doing interviews or public appearances. Even if we’re good at the public side it drains us. I was not happy with last year’s message of bright red cardinal, but female cardinal is a little less flashy. She does most of the egg sitting in the spring because her coloring lets her blend in and not attract predators while the male is the stalking horse saying, look at me and don’t look for our nest. Do I get to hunker down at home and nest this year? Cardinals don’t stop with laying eggs and raising chicks just once in the spring, unlike most song birds they will rinse and repeat two to three times a year. Here in Missouri where the weather stays mild longer I’ve seen them still feeding fledglings in early October. Though that’s a chancy month in the Midwest, because we can get a freak October snowfall. The year I noticed them feeding in October the weather stayed mild, luckily. They build a fresh nest for each set of eggs, probably because even the slowest predator might figure out where their nest is if they keep going to the same location to feed babies from March to October. Once they successful raise all their young then it’s time to form winter flocks with the juvenile birds who look just like mom. The males won’t get Dad’s bright red plumage until next spring, so the threesome I saw by the feeders on January 1st probably weren’t all females, but mom and chicks all camouflaged together to up the chances of this year’s babies surviving the winter without getting eaten by a hawk, or other predator. Maybe that’s my lesson for the coming year that I don’t have to be the brightest thing in view, but just concentrate on laying as many eggs (ideas) and raising as many chicks (books) as possibly this year. Be wildly productive and concentrate on writing new stories, and don’t put all my eggs in one nest, basket like the cardinal I’ll up my chances of success by having multiple nests for different broods (ideas/novels/stories) and concentrate on raising them until their ready to fly on their own and share with all of you.