The Suitcase Lady Blog will resume at a future date.

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Disclosure: With one exception, I write a short, positive blog every week of the year. The week of the Fourth of July is the one exception when my thoughts are on the state of our precious and fragile Democracy. This year’s post follows.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born in 1919, died in 2021 at the age of 101) was a poet, publisher, social activist and co-founder of the famous City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. He called himself the last of the Bohemians and was a champion of the Beat Generation.

Ferlinghetti’s most famous book of poems was “Coney Island of the Mind”. It was published in 1958 and has sold over one million copies. One of the poems in the collection is entitled “Pity the Nation”. Ferlinghetti was inspired to write the piece after reading Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran’s poem of the same title.

Here is Ferlinghetti’s version of the poem. I wish it could be splashed on billboards nationwide as we approach this momentous Fourth of July and upcoming Presidential election.

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Most of us have been lucky enough to have had this experience. A bird finds its perfect nesting site somewhere on our home. We are able to be voyeurs on the entire parenting process; preparation, parenting, nurturing and fledging.

I recently finished an inspiring book, Nature’s Last Hope, by Douglas W. Tallamy, and have acquired a new understanding and appreciation of birds’ parenting skills. Before reading the book, I would have guessed that most birds (excluding raptors) were feeding their chicks insects or worms. Wrong. According to Tallamy, “Caterpillars are the mainstay of most bird diets in North America, particularly when birds are raising their young.” He whimsically but accurately describes caterpillars as “soft bags filled with food.”

Birds quickly stuff food down their young babies’ throats. Insects have hard outer exoskeletons which could damage the chicks. In contrast, caterpillars are squishy, digestible packages of proteins and fats. It would take 200 aphids to equal the balanced food value of one juicy caterpillar.

The nesting period is the most dangerous time in a bird’s life. The young birds must grow fast and learn to fly quickly to avoid becoming an easy meal for numerous predators. Most baby birds fledge after only 16 days in the nest. This means the parents will be worn ragged keeping their offspring fueled to grow at exponential speed.

A typical baby bird will eat a full meal 30 or 40 times a day. Thanks to the hard work of field scientists, numbers are available on how hard these parents are working. For 10 days in a row, downy woodpeckers brought food to their nest 4,095 times. Hairy woodpeckers delivered food 2,325 times. In a 16 day nesting period, chickadee parents delivered between 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to one nest of tiny birds. And then they couldn’t slack off but continued to feed the fledglings for 21 more days.

Not even the fussiest human baby or teenage boy makes these demands. Bird parents need to be inducted into a Parent Hall of Fame.

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Sweden is known for its joyful midsummer (Midsommar in Swedish) celebrations. The longest day of the year is an official holiday; festivities abound.

Decades ago, my husband asked me, “How would you like to go to Sweden?” He had found an incredible deal on “Go Today”, $375 for a nonstop flight from Chicago including the hotel. The time was late fall, and the trip was for only four days. The price seemed too good to be true. We speculated the hotel would not have many stars. But in the spirit of adventure, he hit the “buy” button.

The flight was perfect, the hotel lovely and Sweden was beautiful…when we could see it. The factor we had overlooked was the time of year. The sun went down shortly after 3:00 in the afternoon and did not reappear until late the next morning. Near freezing temperatures were accompanied by a steady drizzle. After a day of hiking around Stockholm and waiting for buses, we were drenched and turning blue.

Seeking warmth, we darted into a shop where I spotted this postcard on a rack.

I immediately understood why Midsommar is such an important celebration in Sweden. These people stoically endure a heap of dismal weather and darkness to get to the solstice.

The next day, we rented a car and turned on the heater full blast. We enjoyed the scenery, arriving at our destinations in total comfort. And we faced the fact that we were not the kind of people who could get out of their sauna and happily jump into a frigid lake.

Many years later, we returned to Sweden to attend a wedding. It was held on one of that country’s most popular wedding days, Midsommar. Light lingered in the sky until 11:00PM with dawn arriving shortly after. Every Midsummer since we have raised our glasses to the sun, the giver of light that makes all life possible.

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We were eating breakfast while watching a steady stream of birds enjoying their morning meals in our numerous bird feeders. A catbird flew in and I noted that they are great mimics. That’s when my husband posed the question, “What makes a songbird a songbird? Is it just the vocalization?”

“I don’t know”, I replied, “but I’m sure it’s more features than just their delightful songs.” We immediately consulted that modern-day Oracle, the smartphone, to learn more about our vocal visitors. Here are our discoveries.

Songbirds, or oscines, are the largest group of avians on our planet. They are part of an order of birds called Passeriformes. The birds in this order are all perching birds. They have three toes facing forward and one toe facing backward, perfect for grasping branches.

The passerines are divided into three suborders, the largest of which is the passeri or songbird suborder. With over 4,000 species, the songbirds range in size from the 0.19-ounce Golden-crowned Kinglet to the 1.5 to 4.4-pound Common Raven.

Almost all birds have a vocal organ called a syrinx to produce sound. But the songbirds have mastered the use of it. Audubon field editor, Kenn Kaufman, explains, “The oscines have a whole series of really complex muscles attached to the syrinx and it gives them much greater control.”

Songbirds are unique from the other passerine groups because the young birds must be taught their songs by their parents. That’s correct; mom and dad are their tutors, and kids must listen up.

The two main functions of these intricate, learned birdsongs are marking territory and wooing mates. While courting, a male bird may throw in an extra note or two. Females apparently find this riffing especially attractive.

An unusual fact is that songbird songs are constantly evolving in response to various situations. For example, birds in urban environments raise the pitch and volume of their songs to project over the cacophony of the city. Rural birds vocalize at lower frequencies which enables them to add more flourishes and trills to their songs.

Nature is endlessly fascinating… if we stay tuned.

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