I sat under a Red Cedar tree and waited for the sunrise. The north wind was rustling leaves, setting the stars twinkling and buoying migrant birds on their southward journey. Every morning is different; the cast of characters is in a constant state of flux. Ancient seasonal rhythms immerse us in mystery. Beautiful birds following celestial guides drop from the sky with stardust on their wings. I am hoping to become part of the flock this morning. The pre-dawn calls of birds hint at this possibility. They are roosting in dense cedar trees and shrubs in the savanna. The frequency of their calls increases with the morning light and mixes with a rush of wings. The birds are beginning their day.
Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner - what is it?
if not intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming.
Rainer Maria Rilke
The first rays of sunlight illuminate leaves in the tops of the young oak trees in front of me. The birds must be watching for the light. They quickly move in and start foraging. The trees are now awash in light, flashes of wings, and trembling branches. The energy of the flock is magnetic. More birds stream into the trees, chasing the light. The Bur Oak 10 yards away fills with birds.

I sit still and am soon surrounded by birds. They washed over me like a wave. Kinglets, warblers, and vireos forage above my head. The once-calm scene is now buzzing with life. Call notes and songs fill the air. At ten feet or less, you can hear a kinglet bill snap shut on an insect. The tiny clear snap signals the end of one life and fuel for another.
All this visual and acoustic stimulation is bathed in soft light. This gives the inherently beautiful birds sublime qualities. The yellow of the Nashville Warbler appears to glow, to be lit from within. The fiery crests of the kinglets take on even more intensity. It is hard to focus as I watch one bird while several others enter my peripheral vision. I can see three different warblers on the same branch.
Do branches delight?
Do branches delight in the bird? Do they hold tight to the nest, feeling proud and responsible? Do they believe the singing is for them – a lyrical prayer for a long life, or maybe a blessing is gratitude – reciprocity? Is it coincidence that their leaves come and go as the birds come and go?
Do birds delight in the watcher? Do they feel seen in the way that humans long to be seen? Do they take note of form and behavior - field characteristics? Do they want our affections, or are mornings for them about the fullest extent of their tolerance - for some short, for others long? Are we to be unrequited lovers? Oh, my dearest, no – I have reason to believe that we keep rising early and showing up in edgy places because we've had the experience of something looking into our eyes and choosing to stay for a while, choosing our company. Choosing us.
I go to the woodland, the meadow, and the water’s edge with hopes and dreams, with just enough knowledge to pry the magic loose from the breaking day. When I lift the binoculars, it can be science, and it can be mythos – simultaneously don't take one with you unless you bring the other. It's a rose-breasted grosbeak, and it's a god, whose heart bleeds, his lament for the soul of man too great to be contained within his feather chest.
In the branches, there is song.
Jamie K. Reaser
I am inhabiting a little pocket of intimate abundance on the landscape and bearing witness for a brief moment to the lives of birds. My life intersects with their life, and by being with them, I can appreciate their essence and what they have to teach us. One thing becomes clear: we have the same basic needs for connection, food, and shelter.
I cross a threshold of sorts and let go into the experience. It is all-encompassing. I set my camera down, close my eyes, and am content to be with the birds. I rest in the beauty of fall migration as the avian wave undulates around me. I am sitting in a savanna with shrubs and small trees adjacent to an oak-hickory woodland. This young savanna provides quality habitat for the birds. They are now flying in every direction.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field, I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
Rumi
This goes on for about twenty minutes, and then I notice a slight pause in bird activity. My attention reaches out to scan the nearby woodland, and I realize that the sunlight is now illuminating the trees on its edge. I decided to follow the light. When I reach the sunlit woods, I reencounter a mixed flock.
The birds rolled across the young savanna and have now coalesced in the light on the edge of the woods. There are so many birds that the experience still enthralls me, and I continue watching, listening, and absorbing the energy of the flock.
A flash of yellow catches my eye, and I notice a warbler foraging in a small cluster of dead oak leaves. My brain registers the pattern of a Golden-winged Warbler, and the spell of immersion is broken. I cannot resist the possibility of capturing the beauty of this rare warbler, and I focus on her as she moves about the canopy in front of me.
The Golden-winged Warbler is gone in a flash, and I continue down a trail along the edge of the woods. I come to an area with Rough-leaved Dogwood shrubs loaded with bright white berries. I can see birds flying back and forth between the dogwood and the woods. The entire shrub is shaking. I walk up near the shrub and stand within the lower canopy of a nearby black oak. I watch the vireos and thrushes feeding on the berries for ten minutes, and then I step out into the trail and walk up to within eight feet of the dogwood shrub. To my surprise, the birds continued foraging in the dogwood as if I were not there.
They had come to trust me, or at least get used to my presence when I was standing amidst the oak leaves, and the fact that I was out in the open did not seem to matter to them. It was a beautiful surprise. I could see a twinkle in the red eye of the vireo.
I believe fall migration is underrated. The birds pass through in big, slow waves in the fall. They tend to linger for a while before continuing on their journey south. It is a lovely time to watch the birds. There is a common perception that it is challenging to identify birds in their fall plumage. While this is true for a small group of birds, it is generally not that different from the spring. Most birds retain some version of their spring feather pattern, and others look identical in spring and fall.

For the small group of birds that are challenging to identify in the fall, it can be an interesting exercise in learning to see subtle details and reading behavior. I went through a period of attempting to discern subtle details like leg color, a wash of brown on the flank, and the presence of barely discernable streaks on the chest. Learning to see these details can help you identify birds like Blackpoll and Bay-breasted Warblers; however, there will always be birds whose identity remains a mystery.
I now spend less time focusing on the small details and more time inhabiting the mystery. I am more content to be with the birds and less intent on documenting their presence in eBird. I still submit checklists, but the desire to list and seek social approval is fading.
I am more interested in sitting still, moving slowly, and learning how to earn the approval of birds. I want to look them in the eye and see them looking back at me. This way of being can reveal layers of their identity. Determining the species is just the first step. Continuing to observe them reveals insights into their behavior and character. Thrushes are a good example. They are inherently secretive and wary. Their ethereal songs emerge from the shadows and influence the landscape's character.
Richard Nelson describes how members of the Koyukon tribe in Alaska have nuanced views of birds in his remarkable book Make Prayers to the Raven. The title refers to their practice of praying to birds and other animals. During fall migration, they will watch the birds flying south and say, "I hope that you will return again and that we will be here to see you."
The Koyukon believe that thrushes can perceive signs of the spirit, and when many of them call, they are registering the threat of an unknown presence. They are wary sentinels that perceive things beyond our understanding.
Seeing the inherent quality in each bird and what it is trying to share about our environment is the beginning of building a relationship that can facilitate caring deeply about their fate. Connecting with birds in this way helps us to see that we are not alone.
Joy is out there, dancing on the branches, waiting to be experienced. I wonder if other people see this same movement pattern with the birds following the light. Many areas have similar habitats - areas with dense trees and shrubs next to eastern-facing woods where you could follow the light and be with the birds in the early morning. For me, these encounters occur between 6:45 and 8:00 a.m. After that, the birds are more evenly dispersed throughout the woods. A similar dynamic plays out in the evening, and the birds will often congregate in the canopy on the edge of a woods that catches the last rays of the setting sun.
I find my fall mornings with the birds to be a path to the transcendent. They buoy my spirit and enhance the experience of being alive. The birds' smallness highlights our smallness: small birds, small people, so much incarnate star dust spinning in the void.
Postscripts
For a list of Monarch resources and a beautiful reflection on the experience of being with Monarch butterflies, see The Perils and Joys of Butterflies at Sea from Bryan Pfeiffer’s Chasing Nature Substack. Here is an excerpt.
“Instead, slowly, gradually, into the lovely flames I waded. And once inside, one among Monarchs, I dropped to my knees and looked around. Nothing else — just me and the flowers and the fluttering. And only then, when neither my camera nor my net mattered, did intellect give way to the utter joy of these butterflies.”
For live bird migration maps in the US see the Birdcast website.
I love this perspective: "I am more interested in sitting still, moving slowly, and learning how to earn the approval of birds." plus these pictures..... breath taking.
Each paragraph, each poem more beautiful than the previous one.
I especially love the idea of praying to the birds. I sometimes pray to the trees.