When Old Friends Drop By Unannounced

We usually don't see American Goldfinches until spring, but nature is full of thoughtful gifts that you didn't even know you needed until just when you needed them most.

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There’s a little window where I often sit when I’m writing. There is a bench outside, where we put little piles of sunflower seeds so that we can watch the birds and the squirrels and the chipmunks gather and munch. It’s a pleasant routine, and I tap away at my various computer-based tasks while familiar friends come, and go, and come again.

The Black-capped Chickadees are my most constant companions in the winter months, and their arrivals and departures sketch a heartening background across the canvas of my peripheral vision.

Such happy companions make any task lighter. And then…all of a sudden…someone new dropped by unexpectedly!

American Goldfinches don’t overwinter here. They can, in our area - they just don’t, at our house. They usually arrive in the early spring, just as the maple blossoms are beginning to open, and stuff their tiny beaks full of flower petals to make me giggle.

But for some reason, this year, they launched an impromptu excursion to feast at our winter feeders.

Chickadee feeder decorum is sort of formal, a well-mannered ballet of orderly turn-taking. When someone cuts in line, they are squawked back to a nearby branch to wait while the proper sequence is restored. They are cute and bright and businesslike and always make me smile.

But goldfinches are more like all the neighborhood kids piling through the back door after a game of tag, brimming with bright energy, everyone, everywhere, all at once. They don’t mind sharing, they don’t have personal bubbles, the pecking order is not on obvious display.

Their champagne-sparkle chatterings fill the air, twinkling notes swirling in bubbly flutes, very whistle-while-you-work in all their flurries of activity.

Goldfinches are all-for-one-and-one-for-all. If anyone is startled, the whole flock is instantly on the wing. Once they judge the danger has passed, they reappear in a cascade, a golden gauzy cloud draping themselves across all of the branches once more.

It’s rather hard to get your fill of American Goldfinches, but I gave it my best effort.

On the bench outside my window, an affable bundle of goldfinches forages wing-to-wing and beak-to-beak. As newcomers swoop in, everyone shuffles to make a little more room, like affectionate family members squeezing into an overstuffed dinner table. Champagne-sparkle-chattering all the while.

And as we all know, after a large, long, satisfying meal, graced with good food and better company, full bellies make for happy snoozings in the golden winter sun.

Unexpected guests who make the heart grow fonder, an endearing bird for whatever ails you - these are gentle promises of nature in our everyday lives.

Making the world a better place, one nature connection at a time. Be curious. Be amazed. And then do it again!