I think that I may be suffering from a case of early-onset March Madness. Given all that has happened in the past 12 months, however, I think that this is perfectly reasonable. Since last March, I have been living in a steadily shrinking bubble of interactions with the human and natural worlds. Seeing very little of the people in my life has been a reasonable response to the situation we found ourselves in, while the arrival of a long, cold “old fashioned” winter has simply compounded matters. Weeks went by in January and February when I barely left the confines of my house for any reason whatsoever.
Then, we all got some encouraging news. In the human world, we learned that help was on the way. As new vaccines for COVID-19 have been made available to more and more of us, there seemed to be a light at the end of a very long, dark and scary tunnel. That has magically coincided with the gradual approach of spring and a more literal “light at the end of a tunnel” in the form of increasing minutes of daylight. Last week, for the first time in a very long time, the temperature was above freezing at 5 a.m. and one could sense a welcome change approaching.
So, I suppose it comes as no surprise that our brains, which have been starved of pleasant stimuli over the past months, might be searching for something “yummy.” For me, it is color that I desire. Just as one might suddenly have an unexplained craving for peanut butter or marinara sauce, I have been drawn to images of nature that are also colorful. This has resulted in my recent preoccupation with pictures of flowers, butterflies and birds. I can’t seem to get enough of them.
Since we are still months away from seeing any traces of flowers or butterflies, I find myself thinking a lot about birds. Blue jays and northern cardinals certainly top the list of colorful “regulars” that visit my bird feeders, but even they are somewhat monochromatic in their appearance. So when I started to think about writing this column I tried to imagine the most colorful bird I had a photo of and there was simply no contest in that particular competition. The clear and decisive winner was the male wood duck.
Wood ducks may be legitimate competitors in the “most beautiful bird in the world” contest. The plumage of an adult male wood duck displays every color in the rainbow and the way the colors are juxtaposed with one another is simply stunning. I realize that there are some tropical species that might give a wood duck a run for its money, but (in my opinion) the wood duck is the clear North American champion.
I crossed paths with this particular individual a staggering 11 years ago while visiting the quiet corner of a lake in early April of 2010. I was lucky that this bird had been acclimated to the presence of humans in that particular spot because under “normal” circumstances wood ducks are diabolically sensitive to any human presence. I rarely catch sight of a wood duck without being seen first and my first hint that a wood duck might be present is usually the sound of the ducks taking flight off in the distance. Still, it took hours before this resplendent male paused in front of my camera at just the perfect angle.
So, I leave you today with nothing more than a self-indulgent feast of eye candy. The days are getting longer and the sense that soon we will all be delivered from confinement (in many forms) might give all of us a reason to feel a little more optimistic in the days to come. As March 21 approaches, the length of each day is increasing by three to four minutes and just as the Earth experiences the “rebirth” of spring, I think we may all experience a figurative “rebirth” in our social lives at the same time.
On that note I extend my personal gratitude to all of you who sent me emails with your accounts of your sightings of yellow-bellied sapsuckers. It has created a wonderful sense of community to know that so many of us are sharing a common experience with such a beautiful bird species. Your stories and your beautiful photos of these birds have definitely added to the levels of joy in my life and I can’t thank you all enough.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 23 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service and the Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information (including his email address), or head over to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.