Lughnasadh
Flying Lessons
Sorry about the smear of bird crap on the dining room window. It may not add much ambience to our gathering, but it's flying lesson season and I won't put a ladder up so close to the nest to clean the window. House rules at this time of year are that leaving the fledglings undisturbed is more important than our squeamishness about the bird crap on the window.
Most of the year God grants me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know that I cannot change relationships among species in nature. But this is Lughnasadh (loo-na-sa), first harvest, the magical time early in August when autumn first makes its imminent arrival known in that oh-so-glorious yet oh-so-subtle change in the light. The first tiny taste of goldening. This is Northern Arizona. For want of soil and rain, we don't have much agriculture here. I celebrate the harvest season in my little corner of the wild world with the season's crop of baby birds. I adore them without reason or limitation. I would do anything for them, living with a smear of bird crap on the window by the table where I eat is nothing.
The Cassin's Kingbirds, Tyrannidaes of the Flycatcher clan, have chosen to nest in the eaves directly outside my dining room window. They bring to my summer the blessing of seeing, for once, which birds are making what sounds and under what circumstances. I am humbled and grateful for this blessing. From my vantage, the Flycatchers have cleverly built their nest in the window's reflection, so that even from standing a foot away on the opposite side of the glass, I can't see what's going on in the nest. I surrender to this with as much good grace as I can muster although I remain intensely curious, and am content with sitting at the dining room table to watch the comings and goings of the parents.
The Flycatchers put on an impressive air show. They hover and dive and roll and swirl and swoop to nab bugs mid-flight to bring back to the nest. The lip of an electrical box provides a staging area if they want one. It's a place to stop for a rest and lets the adult birds make a straight shot up into the nest, but it isn't utilized until later in the season by the exhausted parents and wobbly fledglings. Early in the summer, before their energy is sapped by their young, the parents make a spectacular banking/hovering maneuver right in front of the dining room window to attain the nest. Dad missed his approach one day and bonked the window. Knocked the crap out of himself.
It's more difficult to put the sound together with the bird than you might think, especially for us, the visually impaired, even when we watch for the birds for hours, listen to CDs, and consult bird books. I have always loved birds but have never had good vision. Poor eyesight killed my youthful aspirations to ornithology and I probably ought to have abandoned my love affair with birds long ago. I can't. I remain enthralled and enchanted. Some species I know from long years of cohabitation. I have lived with the Mountain Bluebird, Grosbeak, Red-Shafted Flicker, Violet Swallows, and Steller's Jay tribes for life, and they are as familiar and beloved to me as any other dear, lifelong friends. But then, they're not. They remain visually elusive and alien; like a piece of music I will never be able to really understand or engage with no matter how much I practice it.
The blessing Lughnasadh flying lessons bring into my life is to see, to sense, to understand, and to interact with my beloved bird friends. Fledging is a vulnerable time.
Even when I thought it was cruel to deny my own cats the pagan pleasures of the out-of-doors like rolling in the dirt, eating grass and playing with grasshoppers, I kept my cats imprisoned inside during Lughnasadh, during flying lesson season.
There is nothing gentle or supportive about flying lesson day for the Mountain Bluebirds. Mom and Pop pick the day and, unceremoniously, boot the young'uns out of the nest. Literally. Mountain Bluebirds nest fairly high and it's sink or swim for their fledglings. On flying lesson day, the fledglings instinctively throw their wings wide and glide to the ground. The challenge is lifting off again. The neighborhood cats know this and lurk opportunistically. But I'm on the case.
I have spent many Lughnasadhs fielding cats on behalf of fledglings. Although I am a cat lover, too, I chase them away with my water cannon and slingshot. I only use small, soft pine cones (the ones that have been driven over) for slingshot ammo. I aim to miss them. I use forgiving ammo in case I miss and hit them. I only want to scare them away, not hurt them. Being cats, they view the whole world as a cat toy so sometimes they miss my point and pounce and play with the pine cones (sigh). I aim to hit them with the high-volume water gun though. If I manage to do so they get a good soaking and that particular cat, at least, won't come lurking around again for some time.
Fledgling rescue is counter intuitive. You can't rescue the fledgling or the parents won't take care of it any longer. For reasons I don't understand (or need to), once you have taken the fledgling in your hand it is no longer deemed worthy of its parent's energy and attention. One baby Grosbeak and two baby Juncos paid my tuition for this lesson with their lives. If you want to rescue the fledgling, you have to eliminate the threat and my cat isn't the only one in the neighborhood. Although the neighborhood cats can and often do outlast me—-I have to go to work after all—-over the years I've bought some time for the Kingbird fledglings to get their wings under them.
By Lughnasadh the Steller's Jays have already fledged their young. They have no need of my assistance in any case. Highly intelligent and social, like most Corvids, they are helicopter parents and stick with their young. The cats don't have much chance. Mom and Pop Steller's Jays swoop and peck to keep the cats away as their fledglings make their first wobbly way into the world. I've seen Steller's parents draw blood from troublesome cats. The cats typically give up and go away of their own accord and I cheer this avian victory.
While the parents and eggs of the Cassin's Kingbirds are confined to the eaves on the other side of the dining room window, obscured by reflection, communication between the parents is a light, treble clef trill. It's like a breeze ruffling a small silvery-voiced wind chime. This soft, intimate language is accompanied later by the weak but urgent chorus of the peepers clamoring “Me! Me! Me!” when Mom or Dad comes in with a bug. By Lughnasadh the sweet trilling and cooing of the parents becomes a haunting, plaintive cry. They sit on tree branches in the vicinity of the nest and sing their fledglings into the wider world. It's a two-note plea with a short ascent and long descent. Chi-quueeeeeeeeeer. Chi-quueeeeeeeeeer, that gradually travels further and further from the nest as Lughnasadh lengthens toward Equinox.
One of the Flycatcher fledglings, perhaps on his first time out, only made it as far as the windowsill this Lughnasadh. My geezer cat cleared the table and windowsill and bonked her head on the glass scrambling to try and get to him. It had to be terrifying for the little bird to be a mere pane's distance from such a large, clearly interested carnivore. I keep my cat inside all the time now, but even if she weren't imprisoned my geezer wouldn't be much threat to the wild birds. She's too old, too slow, and too fat, but the little Flycatcher couldn't have known that. The poor little mite wasn't a confident enough flyer yet to take off again right away and had to sit for a minute or two staring down the cat, removed from death only by that scant glass. It was a minute or two that made all our hearts beat fast.
Most of my neighbors buzz cut their acres throughout the summer as though they were city lawns. Much to their dismay I only do mine once a year, at Samhain (sow-en, Halloween), and let it run wild the rest of the time. It's a double-edged sword. I think the taller vegetation draws (or maybe produces) more bugs for the bird people and their young to eat when it isn't mowed, and the Mullein stalks, particularly, provide something tall for the Flycatcher fledglings to land on that's up and away from the neighborhood cats, while their parents call to them with their sweet, sad song. On the opposite edge of that sharp sword, the taller vegetation also provides better cover for skulking cats.
Mullein is medicinal—excellent for chest complaints. I like the notion of gathering medicine from my yard, and of providing a little safety for the fledglings, very much more than I dislike the disapproving, sour faces of my neighbors while they're out with their weed eaters and mowers.
A week or two from now, the sweet yearning call of the Flycatcher parents will turn upside down. As their young become stronger and more confident fliers, better able to negotiate windowsills and Mullein stalks, the Chi-quueeeeeeeeeer becomes Quueeeeeer-chi, a shorter, more celebratory call with a happy, ascending checkmark at the end. It is an auditory exclamation point that proclaims the improved strength and confidence of the fledglings to the wider world. The calls between parent and offspring gradually diminish in frequency and increase in distance as my Flycatcher friends embark on their migratory journey. They leave me lonely for their musical company and aerial antics until next summer. When that haunting echo falls silent, I will relax my vigilance and wash the window.
The rest of the year God mostly grants me the serenity to accept the relationships I cannot change between species in the natural world. Although it grieves me deeply for the rest of the year, I do not deny the cats their catfood. I do not feed the birds and I do not interfere. Saving baby birds is my traditional first harvest celebration so, for us, bon aptit a la bird crap. And Happy Lughnasadh, neighborhood cats. I work at home now. I have my water cannon and slingshot primed and ready and I'm watching you.
We fledge baby birds into this new moon, with our prayers that they will go on to grow and prosper in the wider world. Lughnasadh is your favorite pagan’s favorite holiday, the celebration of first harvest. Now is the time of year that we begin to harvest the fruits of our labors. What have you put your energy into this year? Lughnasadh will show you, if you’re paying attention.
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To the Life in Pieces writing circle for reading an early draft of this.
To Emma Restall Orr for the beauty of her Druidry. She is an inspiration to me both as a writer and as a pagan. Her expression of the wonder and power of the pagan path is elegantly and powerfully articulated. I highly recommend her book Spirits of the Sacred Grove as an excellent pagan primer to those who are curious and wish to know more about contemporary paganism.
Terryl Warnock is an eccentric with a happy heart who lives on the outskirts of town with her cat. She is known as an essayist, proof reader, editor, maker of soap, and proud pagan. A lifetime student, she has pursued science, religion, and sustainable communities. This, plus life experience from the local community service to ski instructor, from forest service worker to DMV supervisor, from hospitality to business owner gives her a broad view on the world.
Terryl is the author of:The Miracle du jour, ISBN-10: 0989469859, ISBN-13 : 978-0-9894698-5-2
AJ Brown, in a past life, was an embedded systems engineer (digital design engineer). He worked on new product designs from hard disk controllers, communication protocols, and link encryptors to battery monitors for electric cars.
A few years ago he surrendered his spot on the freeway to someone else. Now he is more interested in sailing, building out his live-in bus for travel, and supporting the idea of full-circle food: the propagation, growth, harvest, storage, preparation, and preservation of healthy sustenance. He is a strong supporter of Free/Libre Open Source Software[F/LOSS] and is willing to help most anyone in their quest to use it.
Together, we are MoonLit Press.