My wife likes bird feeders. Because she has also been a cat lover her whole life, I used to call them cat feeders. But now that the long sythe of time has thinned out our felines one by one and they lie preternaturally under special commemorative beach stones in the garden, the birds have lost all their discretion, especially in the morning.
The first thing we must do when we get to the island is go upstairs, open the bedroom window and suspend one of the bird feeders from its dangling participle, because, you see, the birds have clearly been deprived while we were onshore. The feeder, which is long and heavy when filled with expensive sunflower seeds, hangs on heavy twine attached under the soffet, an installation that originally required a mountain climber’s finesse to install—think of Tenzig Norgay learning a 5-10 move on a layback without Hilary’s protection. The feeder cannot be left on its own when we are ashore because periodic wind shifts accompanying the innumerable and fickle changes of weather this summer would beat the feeder into the bedroom window. And thus the birds are famished when we return.
The idea here is a pastoral one—close your eyes and imagine pleasant chirping and fluttering during the languid hours of the morning. But it is not like this. The birds are noisy and aggressive when they alight on the window feeder well ahead of the sun and before anyone but a lobsterman would choose to be up. The finches, who have commandeered the roost do not seem to have received Darwin’s message on evolution; the bills of the goldfinches and purple finches look exactly the same, which means they compete aggressively for perching rights. The song of the purple finch in the spring is a melodious one; its territorial alarm calls defending its right to gorge itself on free food, not so much. My wife keeps asking me why they can’t play nicely together.
Which means that I give sleep up early and often and descend with the dog for our circumnavigation of the trails in the outback. Most of the island is a nature preserve, which is how my father-in-law acquired the white elephant of a house and a few acres at the edge of a property that had been abandoned for almost two decades. He was a brave 48-year old architect in the prime of life when he rashly acquired the historic structure, almost for a song, and although he could not sing, he could whistle, which he did as he and his family and eventually I and five sons and various in-laws, cousins and visitors were pressed into service maintaining a house and grounds that annually attempts to swallow us whole.
But back to the morning. The trails are managed by volunteers but many of the volunteers, like me, are aging if not already into their advanced autumnal senescence. The views out over the heaths and moors, which extend your gaze toward the ever-receding horizon, have been compromised by the feral nature of island growth. The enveloping fogs produce as much moisture as the rampant raspberry, blackberry and roses can possibly drink, as they extend their thorny canes across the trails to lash out at your calves. I think of these things every morning during my circumnavigation with the dog. But timing is everything.
You do not want to begin too early before your first morning cup of coffee, nor too late when the preserve’s other regulars will appear. If you delay by foolishly checking the digital headlines or answering overnight email, you may have to wait while a pair of wolfhounds and their masters visit the beach, which thankfully is still visible from the back deck to aid the decision of when to depart. A bit later the realtor will go by, and although all are friendly, I am greedy like a finch for free space at the spiritual feeder.
Because this summer has been especially wet, various surreptitious trail improvement projects have been necessary. Surreptitious only because by the preserve’s logic of letting nature take her course, it is not clear that using driftwood planks to cross mud holes is a politically sanctioned activity. But here’s the thing: The island is a bald rock, upon which there is no soil except for what has accumulated after six decades of plant decay. Soil scientists call these organic soils, which has a pleasing sound to it, but your enthusiasm for them wanes after drenching rains when your dog has splashed excitedly through the black sticky mud up to his belly pan. Oh boy-o-boy-o-boy! Hence the repeated trips to what the kids named lumber beach, which captures significant flotsam, and the black lagoon at the south end of the island to build the bridge of the river Kwai when no one is looking.
Just as soon as you think you have now helped construct the perfect nature trail to be circumnavigated at the perfect time of day, new rains not only require additional plank construction for additional plank walking, but new trimming of aggressive blackberry and rose canes that lie await like snares across your path. So in addition to the leash you must carry in the event you meet the wolfhounds or worse, you must also carry clippers.
If you thought nature was to be enjoyed, you would be wrong; nature is to be tamed, bit by noisy, thorny, mucky bit. Just kidding, I love the birds and the bees and they love me too, sometimes too much.
Philip Conkling is the founder of the Island Institute and now operates Conkling & Associates, a consulting firm.