The Phantom Bird

Move over spark bird and nemesis bird. Something else just flew into town. Or not?

The bird that changed my life landed on a post in the meadow, stayed for a moment, and took off again. At the time, I didn’t even know what it was. Nor did I have any clue what a spark bird was. Ten years later, I’m still writing about it.

A spark bird is the bird that ignites your interest in birding as a passion or a hobby. While a nemesis bird is the bird that you have heard about, read about, and otherwise know everything about, but have yet to see in real life. A phantom bird? I will explain…

And in that meadow, again, this month another brief moment lent itself to wonder. Fireflies, or lightning bugs, those summer sweetheart beetles, are the quintessential sight of a summer evening. This May, I searched for them every night at the end of my evening walk. Each walk ended with me squinting toward the dark tree line. “Are they there? How about over there?” Questions swirled while my eyes scanned. I had been waiting and waiting and they finally appeared on May 26. Just in one spot in the yard, where the meadow is. Where the conditions are just right for them.

At the end of my walk they appeared. A walk I took every night. I did not just go outside, take a look, and go back inside. There’s a difference. As the days went on, they ventured out into other areas. I can see them from the kitchen window now.

But my expectations to see other things that I also knew would be here, have been met with a drastically different outcome.

Eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus) with a bolder, whiter tail tipping indicating an older bird. Tail feather tips on younger birds are narrower and not bright white.

I expected a rose-breasted grosbeak and the tuxedo-wearing Eastern kingbird. Those two long-distance migratory songbirds were quite a regular appearance in the yard last summer, so I expected them again this year. A brief sighting that lasted as long as the time it took to drive down the driveway. That was all I had so far, a white tipped tail that flew up into the hawthorn grove.

But they are not here. They are phantoms. Not so much imaginary. But more so, expected, but unseen.

I can’t sugarcoat this: things are different in the yard this month. Because things that I expected to notice, (and was frankly waiting on) have not shown up.

When I walked around the yard yesterday and came face to face with the amount of damage the deer had done, all I could hear was the wren and the wood thrush in the background. Were it not for that song? I don’t know…it would have been much easier to run indoors and shut out my broken flowers. But I didn’t. The birds that were here wrapped the meadow in sound anyway.

The fireflies would have been in the meadow whether I was looking for them or not. As for the birds? The best moments are the ones that come in unannounced. Not unlike the best lightning storms are the ones that light up the evening sky when the forecasters didn’t see it coming.

So am I expecting to see things and they are not showing? While when I was oblivious and just being, they were all there? Or is it something more? Last year, and the year before that, my camera roll was filled with photos of rose-breasted grosbeaks and Eastern kingbirds.

A rose-breasted grosbeak is one of those birds that you can’t believe it when you see it. They are just breath-taking. Last year, I saw one frequent our bird feeder.

But what if instead…the yard is actually fine and it's just that expectation narrows the focus? I looked so hard for the rose-breasted grosbeak that I almost missed the wood thrush singing through the meadow.

Has my own expectation replaced wonder? Perhaps when I spotted those birds in years past they just happened to be present because I was there in the moment. Not waiting for the moment like I am now.

What do we do when what we expect doesn’t show up?

We listen for the wood thrush apparently.