This morning, I saw a female Cardinal at the bird feeder, and she was magnificent.

I haven’t written about the birds for a while, but I have meant to. The last time I wrote about them was when they all disappeared when we had the hurricane blow through Maine. The hurricane turned out to be much smaller than people had thought, and a lot of jokes circulated social media. Still, we had some trees come down, which is always a worry, and we lost our wild birds.

After this happened, some people posted on the internet that the birds were just in the woods, but ours were not. Our woods were eerily silent, and after a summer filled with the sounds of the biggest bird population we had ever experienced on our property, the silence around our home and in our woods was deafening–and devastating.

One of my dear friends used to teach elementary school, and she told me she used to teach her students about how the birds will hide and go away for safety when a hurricane comes, which makes perfect sense, of course. I was just surprised they were gone for so long–and they must have been far away for our woods to be silent for so long.

Eventually, permanent residents of Maine began to make their return, and it was wonderful to hear them in the woods again. I could hear the Chickadees and the Jays, and eventually, I heard the Cardinal. It was only last week though, many weeks after everyone left, that we first saw a male Cardinal at the feeder. I wondered if he was the baby I had seen all summer, who I watched grow up and gradually start to get his color. It had been so long since I had seen him, I didn’t know, but I hoped.

Ron said, “There should be a female somewhere,” and this morning, she appeared. She sat there at the feeder for the longest time, and I stood and watched her for most of it. Bairre wanted to go outside to see the bird, but I made him stay inside. I wanted to observe her and be so grateful for her.

I did, and I was.

Watching and studying birds has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I never imagined myself a bird watcher when I was younger, but that’s only because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I love getting to know our birds, and I was devastated by their rapid departure due to the hurricane. Still, it just makes me appreciate them more now, and I am going to treasure every single Cardinal and Chickadee in the feeder this winter. I don’t even mind that the Blue Jays are stealing duck food again.

And, soon, I will have to write about our summer with the Chipping Sparrows.

photo credit: Joshua J. Cotten, Unsplash