My grandparents were snowbirds. Every year in late October, they departed from their home in New York, ahead of snow season, and drove south. During the earlier years, they stayed with us in our newly-purchased home, Whitehall, whose overgrown grounds kept my grandfather busy doing what he loved most — gardening. After we moved from Whitehall, my grandparents rented furnished cottages along South Boundary and Colleton Avenue and the streets in-between, which contained a number of seasonal rentals.

They stayed until April, which coincided with the end of polo season. My grandfather was an avid polo fan, and the Whitney polo field was about a block’s distance from home so, most Sundays, I walked over and visited with them during the game or, as was sometimes the case, amused myself while they visited with friends. My grandfather was a gregarious man with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Sometimes I got lucky and caught an out-of-bounds polo ball. These dented-up specimens were eagerly bought up by spectators, selling for fifty cents. Autographed balls commanded a higher price. Either way, there was usually enough to buy a hotdog, an orange Fanta, and a Reese’s cup from the concession stand. Two of my brothers also spent Sunday afternoons at the polo game. One walked the ponies to cool them down after chukkers; the other worked with setting up the ropes before the game and helping the scorekeeper. 

During the week, my grandmother busied herself with her bridge club and garden tea room events. In between, she knitted sweaters for me and my brothers. My grandfather spent his days gardening, visiting with friends, going on long walks in Hitchcock Woods, and feeding the ducks at Aiken State Park. Some Saturdays, we all went to the woods. My grandfather was retired, but he worked as a gardener on a number of the winter estates. I never knew when I might happen upon him working in one of the yards while I was out walking with friends. He was ever amenable to setting aside his work and visiting with me for a while. In parting, he always gave me a lifesaver — either licorice or butter rum. 

Autumn

Autumn in 1960s Aiken was a vividly-felt, sensory feast between the arrivals of the snowbirds, the horses, and “the horse people,” as we called the Winter Colony residents, and the sight of winter residences coming to life with their indescribably green rye-grass lawns; of neatly-raked sidewalks lined in purple and yellow pansies; of white doves, pink sasanquas and golden afternoons scented with tea olive. Stirred into the cooler nights and changing leaves was the the excitement over the annual Halloween Carnival at Eustis Park and entering the poster contest that preceded it. Among my favorite autumn memories was the precise moment my grandparents’ arrived from the north. My brothers and I, after hours of anticipation, would race to the driveway to greet them. My grandfather always brought bags upon bags of apples — Northern Spies, his favorite — and my grandmother always brought us a batch of her sugar and nutmeg tea cakes. When the car door was flung open, we were greeted by this wondrous bouquet of scents, backdropped by just a hint of mothballs — woolen clothes being, to us, a northern peculiarity.

Recently, I found myself recalling all of this, and more, while I was sitting on the back porch. I kept hearing this persistent chirping coming from the Rose of Sharon. It took me a minute, but I finally located the source — a single sparrow, visible only as a silhouette in the branches. “The first sparrow of the season!” I declared to my eldest brother, who was on the step visiting.

I explained how the white-throated sparrows arrive like clockwork every year on Halloween or November 1st. But this was November 2, a little later than usual. I watched the bird as it continued to chirp, its tone almost urgent. After a minute or so, it flew over to a bush near the stump of a maple tree that we’d been compelled to cut down this summer.  More plaintive chirping. Then the bird flitted to another bush, its urgent chirping directed toward the empty space where the maple tree once stood. 

The Maple Tree

The decision to cut down that tree was a difficult one. We struggled over it for years after the tree developed an enormous hollow in the center of its trunk. The rest of the tree was full and leafy — a veritable mother tree for resident birds and migrating passers-through, along with skinks, black racers, wrens and warblers that summered in the branches.

The last photos of the maple tree, taken the morning the tree was cut down. Top: The tallest tree is the maple. To its left is the Rose of Sharon in full bloom. The stump of the tulip poplar, taken a few years earlier, is visible in the lower right corner. Below: Two views of the tree hollow with pokeweed growing out of it.

While my brother and I mused over the lost maple and the chirping sparrow, a large flock of sparrows arrived to the Rose of Sharon, chattering and fluttering about. There must have been about three dozen of them. It was difficult to identify them among the leaves, but it looked to be a mix of several different species of sparrow. You could feel it in their chattering, this palpable sense of relief — something with which most long-distance travelers can probably relate. I expected the birds, hungry from their long journey, to mob the feeders but, oddly, they didn’t. Nor did they settle into the inner thickets of the pittosporum bush under the kitchen window, as is their custom every year. They just disappeared. I didn’t see them again for three days.

Among our many deliberations before taking down the maple tree, we had considered an elaborate cabling of the tree so that, if it failed, it wouldn’t crash onto the house. Ultimately, the idea was so impractical as to be impossible. The loss of that tree was made more painful arriving on the heels of another loss — a nearby giant tulip poplar a few years earlier — the first tree my father planted on this property nearly 50 years earlier. With these two trees fell entire constellations of habitat for birds, with the sudden disappearance of beetles, caterpillars, spiders and seeds for eating; leaves, sticks and webs for nest building; nooks and crevices filled with secret pools of water; leafy boughs for exploring, shelter, rest and safe haven. 

The species and habits of birds in the backyard have noticeably changed since we lost the maple. For one, the Coopers Hawk spends a lot more time on the premises, his coming and goings marked by scatterings of feathers, usually from a dove. For another, the feeders, usually bustling with activity, are utterly still for much of the day. The former variety of birds at the feeders has been replaced primarily by cardinals, which live as a colony of 16 or more on our property. It hadn’t occurred to me, until the arrival of that chirping sparrow, the maple’s importance for the arrival of these migrating birds. For three days, I listened for the first strains of that plaintive song that white-throated sparrows bring to the autumn landscape — but there was just the silence. 

Most of us keep busy enough that the arrivals and departures of migrating birds are not on our radar. Once we do notice, however, the arrivals of the hummingbirds, painted buntings, wood thrushes, and redstarts in the springtime and — in autumn — the arrivals of the sparrows, juncos, and other snowbirds become special occasions to look forward to every year.

White throated sparrow.

Grow or Die

Our “normal” white-throated sparrow population is about two dozen birds, most of them roosting in the pittosporum thicket. This, in addition to at least one song sparrow, a scattering of chipping sparrows, and the occasional fox sparrow that visit the feeders. I spent the three days from November 2nd through the 5th watching the backyard for the sparrows. Their absence made me wonder: Where do birds go when they arrive in spring or autumn and discover their home places have disappeared? How do they find food when they arrive to find only asphalt and rooftops where once stood canopies of trees, leafy thickets, and wild fields edged in autumn flowers, grasses, berries, and seeds? 

Even I, a wingless being in this changing landscape, understand how it feels to watch your homeplace disappear plot by plot, leaf by leaf, ant by ant, year by year. The impact from the loss of a single tree is profound and impossible to fully calculate in terms of the affected moths, beetles, spiders, butterflies, bats, flying squirrels, owls, lizards, snakes, mice and birds, not to mention the larger animals, including us humans. Expand this equation to a small parcel of woods, or a forest, or an entire landscape reduced to a patchwork of subdivisions, urban sprawl, clear-cuts, and pine plantations. 

Considering the impact from the destruction of single maple, it is not difficult to grasp the role of habitat loss and fragmentation in the decline of so many species. Here in South Carolina, where the rate of deforestation rivals that of the Amazon rainforest, we have front-row seats to the consequences of the runaway development and industry. Newcomers may not be cognizant of the losses, but those of us who spent our lives traveling the back roads by heart to the mountains and the coast increasingly find ourselves in terra incognita. Real estate developers have a sales pitch they use to justify transitioning a landscape from woods and fields to strip malls, high-density housing, and traffic gridlock: “We must keep growing or we’ll die.”

These words came to mind as I watched the sparrow hopping from bush to bush chirping at the empty space where the maple tree once stood. Were it possible to translate the persistent chirping of a single sparrow, we might better hear the folly of the developers’ mantra.

The white-throated sparrows reappeared after three days. The first one arrived to the jasmine thicket, then another to the grassy weeds near the feeders. Another joined, and then another. There are maybe five in all. They’ve since settled in. Even when out of sight, I can see their presence in the tips of the pittosporum branches, which stir and tremble as the birds hop about below. It’s now mid-November. The nights have grown cooler and the days shorter. The skies are bluer now, and leaves on the trees are turning color and falling. To borrow from Robert Browning, “All’s right with the world.” 

Almost, anyway. I’m still left to wonder at the ongoing silence. 

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Below: A small sampling of songs from our local migratory birds.