A particularly vivid memory of summers growing up in West View, north of Pittsburgh, was a patch of garden coreopsis that grew along the hedge next to the street. The plants would appear each spring, along with the rest of the garden flowers. My mother loved her flowers, and the coreopsis was a particular favorite.
When I would cut the grass she always made a special point that I be careful with the mower near that patch of coreopsis. I would carefully cut around them, and then vigilantly pull any stray grass that was encroaching on their territory.
The plants thrived and by the end of June opened their bright yellow daisy-like heads. Once they started to bloom they continued through the summer. My mother knew she would have an uninterrupted supply, so she would have me cut two or three flowers and bring them into house for the dinning room table.
Whenever I was sent on that errand, my mother would remind me to take only the flowers that we needed for the table and no more. She told me to make sure that some of the blossoms would stay on the plants and go to seed. She had a special reason for letting some of the coreopsis go to seed, and that reason would appear later in the summer.
In the days before air conditioning, August evenings were spent in the yard on the shady side of the house. A hammock and a couple of wooden lawn chairs were the seating in our outdoor living room. Rather than a TV, we had the garden, neighborhood shrubs and trees, and whoever or whatever happened by for entertainment.
My father puttered around in his beloved tomato garden, my brother played mush ball in the vacant lot next door, and my mother read. I took up residence in the hammock. It slumped into a cocoon-like bowl, and I watched the sky for nighthawks, chimney swifts and dragonflies, and tried to be the first to see a star as the sky lost its light.
Invariably, on one or more of those evenings, my mother would excitedly, but with a whisper, announce, "Look, the wild canaries are on the coreopsis!" Her investment in allowing some flowers go to seed was paying the dividends she expected.
She loved seeing what she called wild canaries, and she equally loved to share her excitement with the family. Sometimes I think -- no, I know for sure -- that those special moments are very much a part of my continued wonderment and love for the natural world.
The word spread, and soon my father and brother would set aside what they were doing and gather to watch the wild canaries feed on the coreopsis. The birds would land on the spindly flower stalks and wave back and forth as they plucked seeds from the dried heads. Brilliant sunflower yellow males with black wings were like shafts of afternoon light on a warm August evening. Gingerly they used their distinctive orange bills to take one seed at a time, turn it, and extract the soft inner meat. One after another would come and feed until the seed heads were empty, or darkness finally fell. Every time I see a wild canary -- now I know them as American goldfinches -- I am taken back to the coreopsis and my mother's delight on those summer evenings.
Recently my relationship with the American goldfinch was reawakened. Not that I hadn't seen these birds over the years, but I hadn't seen them at close range or seen so many birds at a time.
This past April, my daughter and her family moved to Sweden for a year. They had to store many of their belongings that couldn't be shipped, but before they did I went through the bits and pieces to see if there was anything that I was likely to use in the interim.
I came across a bird feeder that was designed to feed finches. It is a plastic cylinder that hangs from a limb and has perches sticking out the side. At each perch is a little hole for the seed to come out. Since the food preferred by finches are small high-energy seeds, the common birdseed sold for finches is a tiny black "thistle" seed -- actually it is from the Niger plant and is not really a thistle.
I took the feeder home, got a couple of pounds of seed, filled up the cylinder and hung it in a tree where I could easily watch from my office window. I honestly didn't expect the reception that the feed received.
April and May is the peak of goldfinch migration. I'm convinced that every northbound goldfinch got word that my feeder was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner -- and it was free!
The first day I had a few males and one or two females on a regular basis.
The second day more goldfinches came by -- apparently they heard by word of beak.
The third day was chaos. All eight perches were occupied, all the time. Goldfinches were perched on the branches of the maple waiting their turn, and there were even occasional squabbles over a perch or two. The feeder was empty within three days on the first round, and soon I was filling it every day.
Since then visitation has slowed, now that the goldfinches have paired and taken up specific territories. I go about a week between fillings. There are goldfinches still coming to the feeder, but the frenzy of a packed house is over.
Nevertheless, my spring experiment with the goldfinch feeder was a success. I learned that no matter how many of the sunflower yellow and coal black birds that I see, they still engender my awe. Just as my mother had a special reason for leaving the coreopsis go to seed, I now have a special reason for keeping the feeder filled to the brim.
Putting up that feeder has brought back the memory of my mothers' excitement on those summer evenings when her wild canaries would come to the coreopsis. Maybe now I'll add one more element of nostalgia and wrap a rope around the two trees in the yard for a hammock to enjoy a long summer evening.
