It is cool, damp and gray in Columbia today, the first winterish day of the season. As tends to occur each year, the arrival of this raw weather sent me out to fill the bird feeder for the first time since late March. It's not so much that our avian neighbors need my handouts as the fact that I need their company during the dark and dreary days ahead.
No sooner had I opened the feeder than I heard the season's first ringing tune of a white-throated sparrow, just back from his summer in Canada and content to hang out in Missouri for the winter months. In sharp contrast, a house wren flushed from a nearby shrubline and landed on an overhanging branch to clean his bill; unlike the white-throat, this insectivore has summered in the Heartland and will soon leave for southern climes where his prey does not succumb to winter's chill.
The two birds have crossed paths here in our Midwest suburban yard which, in a way, is serving as a link between the vast Northwoods and the Gulf Coastal Plain. More than most creatures, birds highlight the interrelationship of widely spaced ecosystems and, as they make their seasonal journeys, their arrivals and departures both mark our natural calendar and link us to distant landscapes.
