Am I Tougher Than a Chickadee?

No. No, I'm not.

Queen Anne's Lace

I trudged along the Greenway on a recent dreary morning, bundled up in a puffy coat with a hat pulled down over my ears, hoping for a colorful sunrise but seeing only bleak gray sky. There wasn't even a glitter of frost to lend a festive atmosphere. The reluctant dog kept trying to turn back towards his cozy, centrally-heated den, only to be tugged back along the trail. "Get used to it," I mutter, half to him and half to myself.

Gray-headed Coneflower

Then from brush to the north comes the buzzy dee dee dee of our chickadee friends. Their tiny, energetic bodies zip across the trail and flit among the branches of a bare tree. Farther along the trail a cardinal is centered against a dry brown backdrop, reminding me wistfully of the small crimson spot centered in an umbel Queen Anne's Lace from warmer times. The Queen Anne's Lace, soft and elegant no more, has shriveled to a skeletal claw around a nest of seeds. Nearby are some Gray-headed Coneflower, the dignified rounded seed heads half-eaten by goldfinches.

It's amazing and humbling to contemplate the small feathered beings that survive our harshest winters with just a feathered coat and whatever cover they can find among the dry leaves and grasses. Chickadees and goldfinches weigh less than an ounce--about as much as three quarters. House sparrows and Dark-eyed juncos weigh just a bit more, still only around one ounce. Yet they are adapted to survive both the blistering heat of midsummer and the bone-chilling lows of winter.

There's a cardinal in there somewhere.

Sure, I tend to eat constantly in the winter and increase my intake of fatty foods. I minimize bare skin exposed to the elements, and seek shelter from the wind and snow. I'm not as active as during the warmer months. So I suppose we share many strategies for getting through the winter with our tiny feathered friends.

I sometimes wonder, though, if the hardy chickadees ever titter to each other about the wimpy, runny-nosed humans hustling about in bundles of clothing while the birds spend night after bone-chilling night outside with just the feathers on their backs. 

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
-  D.H. Lawrence