The Dance of the Finches

I love the way my home sits nestled in a grove of mature maples and nut trees. Out back, off my kitchen and great room, is a comfortable deck. A brick path separates the deck from a pond surrounded by low-hanging birch clumps and young leaning beech trees. The path encircles a bright, sunlit opening in the woods, providing easy access to two decks connected by a large glassed-in four-season porch. A small pond-overrun creek and a cascading fountain gurgle quietly in the background, adding to the ambiance of this comfortably bucolic scene.

Close beyond the path are a string of perennial gardens and nicely placed evergreen and ornamental bushes that further separate the woods from the house. In a small opening among the trees, within clear view of the decks stands a large birdfeeder. Two sections of silvery stove pipe secure the feeder from squirrels and other quick-climbing varmints that populate the area.

In the early evenings, deer wander in to crop the occasional hosta, tulip, and astilbe plants. More often these deer join a small covey of wild turkeys that also wander in at dusk to pick patiently through a large circle of fallen seeds and shell-debris beneath the feeder. Small, low-hanging branches extend from nearby trees, and unless I keep them trimmed back neatly, light-footed squirrels make acrobatic leaps from these branches to the roof of the feeder. BEWARE: Never trust a squirrel where bird feed is concerned. Alas: I have a soft heart. Every time I fill the feeder, I fight the impulse to cast a few handfuls of seed on the ground beside the squirrels. But I nearly always lose, and the squirrels win out.

Three seasons of the year I love to sit quietly beneath my deck umbrella with a cup of coffee and whatever book I’m currently reading. I sip my coffee slowly, frequently looking up from the pages to enjoy the lovely scene. Mostly, though, the book doesn’t have a chance against the birdfeeder, which draws my eye nearly every time.

One morning last week, I sat lazily upon the cover of my hot tub watching a flock of some forty tiny finches taking turns at the trough of the feeder. Bright sunlight made dazzling sparks on their feathers as they darted about, making space for each other in a wild melee of whirling movement surrounding the feeder in a tight sphere of action. I singled out one brightly colored male and traced his three-second path as he darted from ledge to feeder-roof to trough to branch, and round about again and again. And he was only one bird in the whirling mass of his fellows.

It was evident they were taking turns. Perhaps 95% of the birds flitted about airborne at any one moment while the small remainder paused quickly at the trough for a scant, split-second feed. Watching them dart about, braking wildly in mid-air on fluttering wings to avoid head-on collisions soon had me laughing. Clearly, they needed a feathery traffic cop.

Or did they? As I sat transfixed, wondering what to make of this intricate ballet, it suddenly came to me that the finches didn’t need a traffic cop. Their artful behavior clearly demonstrated that startling fact. The more I watched them, their behavior appeared to be a sharply focused treatise upon dividing and sharing whatever space and resources at first appear insufficient to projected needs. That was the valuable lesson I had missed at first.

After all, life is not a zero-sum game. If we maximize production and equally share the yield, there is enough for us all. We just need to care about each other, take turns, and be patient – three skills we are expected to acquire in kindergarten.

Certainly, life can become more than a selfish game of Musical Chairs. Life can be generous. But such a life demands will and practice. First we must share the belief that skilled management can provide enough space and resources for us all. Once we believe this fact, we can begin to practice the Dance of the Finches.

THAT is the generous and artistic choreography we must master.

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