WanderingWilbo: Birding Has Taken Over My Brain, So I Contemplate Building Bird Houses and Selling Bird Suet

Birding has taken over my brain. I loaded a free application for birding called Merlin. It came with a database focused on Midwestern birds. I spotted a bird in flight with a scarlet body, about the size of a bluebird. I looked it up and discovered the name, the Scarlet Tanager. I paused a few moments to listen to recordings of its songs. It even has a song to sing while flying? After listening to all five tapes, I found myself hearing all the birds around me with a keener ear than beforehand.

I intended a walk and I had the park to myself after the light grew too soft for graduation pictures. Streator high school graduates come out to the park to have pictures taken with Spring Lake Falls in the background. I felt no rush. I watched as a bluebird flew from its specially constructed house on a pole to a branch on a black walnut. I watched as the bluebird flew back to stand on the roof.

I imagined myself building a thousand bluebird houses and posting them along roads, spaced just far enough. I remember a girl scout had set up one hundred bluebird boxes along a trail out at Maybury Park in Northville, Michigan. I had read about her project in the paper. One day, I saw her walking along the trail, recording a bluebird count on a clipboard form. I knew it was her because she had worn her girl scout uniform. I haven’t lived in Northville since 1999, so my mind has reached back for a twenty-one year old memory.

At Spring Lake Park, a community group built hundreds of birdhouses and hung many in the trees. Eleven years have passed since those work parties. Bird feeders abound, all posted on poles, all empty. Suet cages offer nothing at all. Benches have screws working loose or screws missing. Trash strewn on the ground stays on the ground.

I would love an evening job filling up the bird feeders, cleaning out the houses before the spring, tightening screws. I could ask for people to donate suet and birdseed, grape jelly and oranges. I could put out a tip box reading, “Wilbo the Boho, Bird Wrangler Tips”. Maybe enough would be donated to cover the cost of gas to drive seven miles out to the park?

I don’t think I’m qualified to be a Walmart Greeter. Maybe I can put out bird seed when I’ve gone to seed.