Warbling through life: lessons from finches on survival

Over the last month, I have become transfixed on a pair of house finches who have decided to build a nest in the cedar hedge just outside my living room window.  I have spent an entire day doing nothing but watch them flit in and out of the hedge as they slowly accrued the ingredients to build their nest. During this period of paying attention to them (initially only by happenstance), my attachment to their wellbeing has increased. So also has my sense of threat when I see crows cowering or notice my cat entering the living room (I turned the chair he loves to nap on away from the window to increase the finches’ chances of going unnoticed).  What's more, I have slowly started to appreciate the manner in which these house finches manage their little lives: They seem to know a lot about survival.  My study of these little finches has offered a number of reminders of how to live well in a harsh world: developing relations of interdependence, practicing rituals for survival, living with limits, and cultivating regular practices of joy.

Interdependence

These finches rely on each other and a broader community to stay safe. They listen and hear the call of other birds throughout the neighbourhood to know when a good time to fly from the nest is and when it is time to stay put.  They also rely on the ecosystem itself as supportive - they make use of the bushes and trees to hide and build a home. They even utilize human-made structures as well, such as buildings and telephone wires for protection or high up perches to stay safe.  They are aware, it seems, of their vulnerabilities and they lean on anything they can as resources for support and safety.

I am reminded of a quote I heard years ago, “The hope of the future,” says benedictine monk David Stendl-Rast, “relies on well-trodden paths from house to house.” Just as the finches interact with all sorts of creatures around them, to find support and safety, creating the pathways in my own world that foster a sense of interconnectedness has brought support and comfort, especially in seasons of challenge or when my vulnerabilities seem more exposed. For me, that looks like fostering a constellation of relations, a network of support that acts in the same way an extended family or small village would.  This takes creativity. For myself, fostering this constellation has happened through hosting dance parties, becoming a regular at the local coffee shop (this is the first time in my life I have been recognized by the baristas!), walking a specific way to work just to greet the reliably friendly seniors who perch on lawn chairs for much of the day in front of their building, or watching finches for hours and learning from them: all of these are ways I am becoming known and supported in the place in which I live, with the people and species I live alongside. 

How are you becoming known and supported - by people and other species - within your place?

Rituals of survival

These birds are aware on a moment by moment basis of the realities of the harsh world, it is evident in how they turn their heads this way and that, scanning the environment, and how they chirp when danger is near - Crows!  Cats! They have developed strong and consistent routines to navigate safely in their world.  Watching them move around reminds me of an espionage movie at times.  The male sneakily flies out of the bush which houses their nest, lands on a perch nearby, and - once he has determined it is safe to leave - he communicates to the female that she can leave.  Together they fly off to collect food or more materials for their home. When it’s time to return, they enter their home in the exact same manner in which they left.  This ritual of leaving and returning gets reenacted multiple times a day.  It’s a habit of survival that they rely on.  

This makes me wonder: what are my rituals of survival? Would early morning meditation, yoga classes, and saunters with a friend and her geriatric dog count?  They might be seen more as practices of leisure, but they are also part of my own survival as well.  They keep me grounded, offer me the spaciousness to reflect, and provide me a sense of well-being. Other rituals of survival I have adopted are ongoing personal therapy, weekly points of connection with my kids and close friends, and a consistent routine to get my children to school on time (which works most of the time).  These are some rituals I practice in order to survive in this world. 

What are yours? 

Smallness

Not only are these finches small birds, there also is a smallness to their world.  These two finches outside my window have found a zone in which they can manage to find enough food and materials AND stay close to their nest and connected with each other.  They also seem to know the lay of the land very well - they seem aware of the other birds in the neighbourhood (the friendly and not so friendly ones, those who are kin and not kin) and the other predators who might be lurking.  They have sorted out which perches are good landing spaces to give them a reasonable lookout and which are not as favourable.  I’m sure they have discovered the hot spots on the block where there’s a good cache of food as well. There’s a zone that they know works for them and they stay within it.  

This reminds me of my own growing awareness of my limits in activism and engagement in the broader world.  I sit alongside people in their suffering most days of the week as a therapist, so I have realized that the zone that works for me now looks a lot smaller than it used to when I wasn’t in this field of work.  I have reduced my time on social media and the amount of world news I absorb, because at a certain point, my own internal capacity begins to dwindle.  Undoubtedly, there is loss in living within this zone - I often feel out of the loop on very important matters of the world and I miss engaging in front line activism.  However, I also know that I am doing what I can in my day to day life to address injustice, most specifically in supporting the well-being and thriving of the people I support so they can engage in the world in a more free and embodied way. 

What is your own zone of thriving?  What are the limits that help you function best?

Finches sing! 

I wake up most mornings to the sound of these birds' songs, which is surprising because they are such small creatures.  In fact, the finch is the most vocal of all small birds.  They use their voices to communicate about territory and dangers, but they also use it for courtship and bonding.  They even have a local dialect, which reflects that their song is connected to place. 

I have to admit that singing, aside from the odd shower or on long car rides, is not a regular practice in my life (It doesn't help that my kids groan when I start to sing along to radio tunes on the way to school. It also doesn't help that I don't know the words).  Increasingly, though, dancing has become a priority.  To me, it's an act of resistance and defiance because dancing (as well as singing) are acts of embodied celebration, they are acts of connection and they are acts of hope.  In fact, singing and dancing are about “creating a world where,” as adrienne marie brown suggests, “joy and pleasure are accessible to all.” 

What acts of celebration, joy, and pleasure - such as singing and dancing - are you incorporating into your life?

It has been an eye opening - humbling - experience to watch these finches over the last month. I am becoming aware that they don’t really need my protection as much as I thought they did, or that my attempts to protect them do anything anyways. They seem to know exactly what they are doing. In fact, whenever I think they might be dead to the crow or a stalking neighbour’s cat (it would never be mine!), the next morning I wake up to the crisp sound of their birdcall.  

“Stand still,” writes David Wagoner, in his poem Lost. “The trees ahead and the bushes beside you / Are not lost.” Neither, it seems, are the finches.