to be—and were—attending a wake.
There on the deck lay a northern flicker. Seen from afar, these ant-obsessed birds are arresting, an intricate hodge-podge of speckles and stripes. Up close, they are downright exquisite—as if a zebra and leopard lent their patterns to a professional painter. This was a male, his black moustache (or “malar stripe”) slicing down his cheeks.
The silence was a rare counterpoint to our typical household cacophony. And it matched the flicker’s motionless body. Until it convulsed, flipping its head back over its body as its yellow-splashed wings whipped outward. And then it convulsed again. And again.
Linda, ever empathetic to anything with a pulse (with a glaring—and hypocritical—exception of mice and snakes), couldn’t help herself. “I can’t take this!” Her voice faltered as she sped out of the room. Ezra, unable to endure his mother’s despair, ran after her, mimicking her saddening shrieks. That left Indigo and me alone at the funeral.
Although I had already pieced together the puzzle due to the new smudges on the window’s exterior, I couldn’t resist quizzing my uncharacteristically stoical three-year-old.
“What happened?” I asked, looking down at her.
“The birdie hit the window,” she said, without any trace of emotion. “Is it dead?”
I said nothing as the flicker flipped one last time and then lay lifeless. My daughter’s question hung in the air like the bird-feeder hanging five feet above the flicker’s head. Wishing again for parental blueprints of when to introduce what, I decided this was a moment of truth.
“Yeah, it’s dead,” I replied.
As soon as I said this, one of my western New York heroes, Roger Tory Peterson, came to mind. It was simple association. Growing up in nearby Jamestown, New York, he was captivated by this very species, the northern flicker, as an eleven-year-old boy. Similarly, he had discovered a listless flicker on an oak branch near his home. Not knowing if it was dead or asleep, Peterson picked it up and cradled it. The next moment, the flicker sprang back to life and exploded from his arms. The bird had only been temporarily impaired or perhaps exhausted after a long migration.
This phenomenon of sudden recoveries is not uncommon to homeowners who feed birds and witness window collisions that temporarily render birds witless. What surprised me was that this was a flicker, a woodpecker that smashes its head against immovable objects for a living. Woodpeckers are equipped with the very best concussion prevention gear available. Micro-CT scans have revealed tiny pockets of air—shock absorbers—in the woodpecker’s skull, unlike the solid-wall skulls of most other birds. Another small cushion sits between the base of the bill and the skull. The most effective of the flicker’s evolutionary airbags, however, may be its remarkable tongue. Unlike all other birds, woodpecker tongues connect to the hyoid bone, which exits the skull at the base and wraps up and over the skull, anchoring to the forehead. The wraparound tongue isn’t just a cushion; it’s also a tourniquet. It effectively pinches the jugular vein while the bird hammers away, increasing the volume of blood within the skull. This softens the impact within the skull rather than just outside it.
These adaptations explain why affiliates from the concussion-prone NFL have shown a sudden interest in bird watching. They may also account for the recovery of young Peterson’s flicker. Regardless, he found the moment miraculous. So miraculous, in fact, that he credited it with changing the course of his life and leading him into a life of birds. This soon spawned his famous field guides. It was my father’s Peterson guide to the birds of eastern North America, which I flipped through incessantly as a boy by the windowsill, that helped lead me into a life of bird appreciation. So I owe a debt to the flicker as well.
But Peterson’s flicker had resurrected. This one, with rumpled feathers and clouded eyes, needed interment. So out the door I walked. Untouched by the empathetic spillover shown by her mother and brother, Indigo followed me out the door. I bent over the flicker and picked it up. Without any prompting, Indigo extended her index finger and slid it delicately along the bird’s back. I studied her face as she did so. Her slightly furrowed brow and focused gaze revealed little. Then, as the tip of her small forefinger disappeared in the fullness of the flicker’s feathers, her eyebrows went up, almost imperceptibly. When her finger reemerged toward the tail feathers, she smiled and her entire demeanor softened with wonder. Wordlessly, I mimicked her motion. Together, our two forefingers working as one, we smoothed out the bird’s rumpled back. Dignity had now been added to this death.
Having ironed out the bird’s burial cloak, Indigo looked up at me. “Are you going to bury it, Daddy?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Good,” she said, apparently satisfied with this proper course of action.
I cradled the bird with two hands, stepped down off the deck, and went around to the back of the house. I couldn’t resist stealing a glance back at my daughter. She remained rooted, statuesque, watching me. Her stillness, so rare in her busybody stage of life, spoke volumes. This was a small and sacred moment. While its meaning was unclear, I knew that it mattered.
I grabbed a shovel from the garage, dug a hole, and gently lay the flicker inside. I filled in the hole and patted down the dirt. Then I did something unusual. Despite having buried dozens of animals in my life, this anonymous grave required something more—a marker. Spying an odd shard of splintered fiberglass under the shed, I drove one end into the grave. An inch or so showed above the ground. This wouldn’t mean anything to anybody. Except me.
As much as we’d like—and regardless of our nurturing—we parents can’t peer into the future. I don’t know what decisions Indigo will make. Or what kind of person she’ll become. Perhaps she’ll cherish birds; perhaps she won’t. I’m not sure I’d wish my bird interest—which borders on pathology—on anybody, for that matter. But if my daughter ends up noticing the little things, like an unfurling fern frond or the intricate patterns on a woodpecker’s ruffled feathers, I’ll be overjoyed indeed. I may even wander out back to this avian gravesite to remember the bird interred within. In addition to increasing Indigo’s empathy, the unfortunate window collision may one day spark her interest, too. And from this interest, an enhanced life may burn—steadily and brightly—much more than merely a flicker.
Peregrine falcon
Falco peregrinus
5 • BIRDERS CAN’T RIDE SHOTGUN
The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn cunning gave him poise and control.
—Jack London, The Call of the Wild
“So Ezra, when do you think we should—”
“White ibis!” Ezra shouted, pointing out my mother’s window in Florida. I leaned forward on the couch and peered out. Sure enough, Ezra, then five years old, had found two pearly white ibis strolling through a neighbor’s yard. As a fledgling parent, I was both annoyed and thrilled. Should I admonish him for interrupting my question, which I could no longer remember? Or should I congratulate him for both finding and correctly naming one of Florida’s most dazzling species? Before I could decide, his grandmother walked in and joined us at the window.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you what those white birds are.” She sat down slowly to avoid spilling her coffee.
“They’re
