The Birds, the Bees, the Bears

Back in March, in obedience to the State of Vermont guidelines, I took down the birdfeeders which I had hung from our eaves only three months earlier.  The reason for this annoyingly brief bird feeding season is, as with so much other annoying stuff, climate change. Shorter, warmer winters mean shorter hibernation for black bears, and wideawake bears are ever on the prowl for food. I try to be a responsible citizen and follow the rules, but that doesn’t mean I like them.

There is no question that the guidelines are effective. In the couple of years since I’ve been taking down the feeders in the warm months, I haven’t seen even a hint of a bear. But I also haven’t seen a hint of the rose-breasted grosbeaks, indigo buntings, and orioles that I depended on to cheer my summers. And also thanks to the guidelines, even during the feeding season we get way fewer birds than we had when we fed year-round. This past winter, although the titmice and nuthatches plus a couple of woodpeckers stayed around, even the usually ubiquitous chickadees were scarce, and I don’t think I saw a single goldfinch. Their absence felt like a reproach.

What else? Fewer birds at the feeders means fewer seeds spilled on the ground, which in turn means fewer squirrels, which means that our neighborhood foxes have deserted us for more productive hunting grounds. My backyard, once a mini Serengeti teeming with life and drama, is now a wasteland, home only to ants, spiders, and the occasional snake. All this deprivation is in honor of keeping the bears out of our suburb, and in our case, since the community beehives are across the street from us, keeping them from tearing up the hives. I like bees— their black-and-yellow striped outfits, their buzz, their mystique, and what they supposedly do for the food supply (though there is doubt as to the ecological benefits of domestic beekeeping). But for me, faced with the choice of seeing a bee versus seeing a bear, the bear—the snuffling, the shuffle, the reek, and yes, the danger—wins by a mile. Plus I’m not even that fond of honey—gluey, sticky stuff that burns my throat.

My main objection, though, has to do with the absence of birds. If you had told me when I was in my callow forties that I would one day be upset because I couldn’t have lots of birds coming to my feeders, I would have rolled my eyes. But my life was full to bursting in those years, and between working  and parenting and milking goats and keeping chickens, I didn’t have the leisure to stand watching a downy woodpecker hammer at the suet. But now that I exist in a sort of conventual stillness, sans goats, chickens, or children, I need those birds to punctuate my year (the grosbeaks in the vanguard, the indigos arriving around Mother’s Day, followed by the orioles), to enliven my mornings, and to keep me company in that melancholy hour between three and four o’clock p.m.

True, at least I am still allowed to keep a bird bath, with a submerged heater in freezing weather. It is mostly used for drinking by the squirrels and the bees, and only the occasional bird. A raccoon bathed in it once. But what if god forbid a bear should find it?  Will I be obliged to give that up too?

Don’t worry. I am only letting off steam. No way will I join the ranks of those errant souls who covertly feed year-round. I grudgingly admit that the rules make sense. But that doesn’t mean you won’t hear me complain about them.