New Year, First Bird
Some people like to choose a word to set the tone for the new year. I wanted a practice that connected me more to the natural world. Of course, I messed it up. But did I?
Listen to me read you this post:
I do not remember the first bird I saw in 2024.
Some people like to choose a word to name their new year. Usually, a verse or a line of poetry chooses me. But at the end of 2023 I started reading Margaret Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows, and she keeps a tradition of noting the first bird she sees on the first day of a new year. In her book, she quotes, Lyanda Lynn Haupt from Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds,
“This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, first bird.”
The first bird of the year, you see, says Renkl, “Sets the tone for your next twelve months.”
The trouble is, New Year’s Day was a Monday this year and since I work at a hospital, it was a workday for me. I left the house in the dark of predawn and thus did not peek out back at our little bird sanctuary as I do on my days off. I may have seen a turkey vulture or a flock of starlings on the drive in—likely there were crows or house sparrows in the parking lot.
But I don’t remember. I was tired and grumpy from staying up too late to watch the ball drop and was not in “natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird…”
The first reference to a bird in my new journal is on January 5, when a house finch landed in my new window feeder, gifting delight. A quick, google search tells me that house finches are considered a symbol of good luck, and are seen as a sign of hope and new beginnings. This all sounds well and good, but I am reluctant to claim this fortune, as I am sure I saw many other birds prior to that one little peeping Tom on January 5.
Is it cool to fudge the first bird of the year? Or, like some kind of backwards hocus-pocus, will it doom me to unnamed bad luck, dashed hopes, and a sea of stuckness-never-to-begin-anew fate? The truth is we do have plenty of house finches, and they are always around in numbers. If I had chanced a glance out the window on New Year’s morn, I likely would have seen a flock of these little ones all gathered together in my quince bush as they are want to do.
In my Google frenzy, I learned that the house finch was native to the western United States and Mexico, and only came to the eastern parts of this country as late as 1940. “… A small number of finches were turned loose on Long Island, New York, after failed attempts to sell them as cage birds (‘Hollywood finches’).” Within the next 50 years they had spread across almost all of the eastern United States and southern Canada. But we don’t think of them as invasive, do we? Not like the troublesome house sparrows and starlings. The house finches are simply too sweet.
I’ve always always thought the song of the house finch a cheerful one. I love how they all seem to be talking at once, like an excited conversation. These little finches love the black oil, sunflower seeds, I put out, staying at the feeder for long intervals and cracking seed after seed with their stout bills. The males have rosy red faces and breasts; their bright, red rumps are conspicuous when they fly away. The females are a plain brownish gray, but as they visit my window feeder most often, I have come to admire their simple, brave beauty. Some males have a more yellow or orange cast to their feathers, which is due to the amount of pigment in the food eaten at the time of molt. “The more pigment in the food, the redder the male. …Females prefer to mate with the reddest male they can find… during courtship, males sometimes feed females in a display that begins with a female gently pecking at his bill and fluttering her wings.” See what I mean? Sweet. I could do worse for my first bird.
Still. Part of me wants to name the year after something much rarer and more exotic. There is that ruby-crowned kinglet (associated with perseverance, fearlessness, and joy) that’s been visiting the suet out back. And the bright pop of that male eastern bluebird (joy, happiness, harmony) we saw out the cabin window when we were staying in the forest last weekend. Even the mewing yellow-bellied sapsucker (protection, intelligence, new opportunities) who welcomed us to the old growth forest might portend something fresh and new in 2024.
The snow came in the night—about five inches—and this morning, my backyard birds are in a frenzy. The window feeder has drawn many more house finches. I’ve also been visited by one brave male goldfinch, several northern cardinals, a hungry song sparrow, one overlarge bluejay who perched but flew away as soon as he saw me, and a couple starlings who fluttered in the air but were too shy to land (thank goodness). Even the robins are interested and do occasional fly-bys. I am grateful for the courageous, who stay and partake for longer intervals. They allow me to study their faces, memorize the way the breeze stirs the feathers of their crests, delight in how their tongues manipulate the seeds in their mouths. There is something so intimate in being allowed to watch them so closely. It floods my heart with gratitude.
In the end, would any of these birds be more desirous as a new year totem than another? Each one is reminding me of how beauty asks me to look closer—the once seemingly common is full of uncommon grace.
May your new year be filled with so many birds, drawing your eye to the uncommon beauty in all the common moments of your life.
How can you go wrong picking any bird? Their intricate, miracle nature is bounty in any form!
So lovely, Laura - your words, your voice, your spirit. ❤️ And I think I’m going to add a window feeder to my wish list.