© Celine Sparks, 2023
The birds are all confused. So am I. I thought when the groundhog saw his shadow, it meant six more weeks of winter. What it really means is six more hours of winter followed by a bright sunny afternoon turning to clouds and a threat of frost overnight with some patches of fog. By mid-morning tomorrow, have a picnic lunch handy because we’re going to see some warm temps and an ice cream truck. Be sure and pack an umbrella for the pop up showers, and make sure it’s the kind with titanium supports because some tornadic activity will be moving in by mid-afternoon.
The poor blackbirds. They fly like crazy thinking it feels like winter, and that’s what they’re supposed to do in winter. They call up everyone on their facebird list, which apparently amounts to millions, and they all say, “Let’s fly to Celine’s yard,” as if it were the Who concert of 1979 with The Yardbirds for the warm-up band. And then they move on to whatever winter event they go to every year. But then in three days, they say, “Oh never mind. It’s not winter at all. We better go back where we came from. We’ll stop in Celine’s yard. We didn’t leave quite enough poop on the swingset the first time.” Just be glad you’re not driving down the road during a flyover. True experience.
It really is millions. Ask me how I know. According to the Christmas Bird Count in Arkansas in December 1964, 40 million birds were tallied. This happened again in the 2011 Christmas Bird Count where the final number was recorded as 5 million (Reuter 2020). Have I been missing something about Christmas? We usually eat tons of sausage balls and red velvet cake. We play Uno and assemble tricycles, but it has never occurred to me once to join into the fun of the annual bird count.
These millions of black birds have been going back and forth with each shift in the climate for five months. Poor birds. They’re never going to get to their great winter celebration. But they’re going to accumulate a lot of frequent flyer miles. Except for those who stray over to the telephone lines, and the top of billboards for gossip sessions. These are likely the ones who fall victim to the pie industry.
Those of us who were paying attention in history class, know that since the 1800’s, some desperate cooks, probably trying to place in a bake-off in the category of originality, have been gathering these helpless black birds by the dozens – two dozen (or 4 and 20) to be exact – and baking them in a pie. I always try to avoid blackbird pie myself because – well, just because it’s not my thing. Kill me, I prefer key lime.
Don't eat the blackbird pie; it’s been known to be underbaked. In fact, in the famous rhyme, when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing. Someone in the kitchen didn’t get that quite done. Those of us who know our history also know this is where the song, Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella first originated. I mean, someone had to put some heat to the live birds singing from the dessert table. Might as well be Jeanette Isabella.
I found out in my serious research that what covers my yard is not necessarily a pure tribe of the pie-singing blackbirds, but can be as much as 75 percent common grackles, and one or two brown-headed cowbirds usually show up, too. (Reuter 2020)
Yeah, sounds about right. When I looked at the mess left behind, I figured a cowbird had been here.
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Work cited:
Reuter, Joanna. “Birds in Big Numbers: Flocks of Blackbirds and Starlings.” Birds in Big Numbers, Columbia Audubon Society, 2020, https://www.columbia-audubon.org/birds-in-big-numbers-flocks-of-blackbirds-and-starlings/.
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