Mowing Up a Good Breakfast

It was time to harvest the hay. Most of the fields around town were already cut, some as much as six weeks earlier. This field behind my house had to wait until the bobolinks had fledged and could escape the mowing machine. I had not heard their cheery song for two weeks. Had they left the field entirely?

The meadowlarks rose from the grass at the first pass and circled round to a distant part of the field, but the mowing machine followed relentlessly. The meadowlark is an early nester and the young were fully grown by now. Soon there was the hollow little chip note of the bobolink overhead, and a group of them flew past, all dull females or young birds. They had made it!

Back and forth the birds flew, six meadowlarks and at least a dozen bobolinks, including two adult males in their sporty black suits with yellow caps and white wing patches. The female and young bobolinks had a buffy orange underside with striped heads, streaked brown backs and short, ragged tails. They stood tall among the fallen grass, gleaning the bugs that were exposed by the mowing.

The meadowlarks were larger with an even shorter tail, the adults showing bright yellow chests with a black necklace hung in a sharp vee. When they flew, they gave off a long buzzy rattle of alarm, their short wings beating stiffly. Once from a nearby tree, the sweet clear notes of their song came falling down on the field.

Their home was being mauled severely, but they did not mind at all now. This was a breakfast bonanza with hundreds of helpless bugs there for the picking. Other birds joined in the banquet. The kingbird came down from the sky and plucked his fill, chasing a crow around for good measure. The crows and starlings were the first to settle down to eat, walking with stately mean through the field.

The mowing also stirred up smaller insects that flew above the field, so barn and bank swallows were swooping by, hardly hesitating in the relentless pursuit of food on the wing. Round the field they went, never stopping to rest, although they would undoubtedly leave for their nests nearby to feed young.

When news of the imminent mowing came, the first job was to check and remove the tree swallow boxes. All had been used and the families were gone. The successful boxes were a mess of solid droppings, but one had dead bodies and two others only nests that had not produced young.

One box in the smaller field down the road had four almost fully grown bluebirds and had to be moved ten feet to the very edge. After the mowing the male arrived to feed the young and removed a white fecal sac when he departed. Bluebirds are excellent housekeepers.

Another box in the main field had a bluebird sitting on eggs. When the machine had passed, a new pole was placed in the cut section and this box was carefully transferred, so that nothing was left in the way on the next pass. The sitting bird never flew, and the couple accepted the move gracefully.

The most fascinating and unique gleaner of the field was the mockingbird. The bird would spread its wings out completely, showing the white patches, then bring them in, hop a few feet, and repeat the process. Sometimes it would bend to pick up a bug and after a half dozen or more of these actions, flew to the neighbor's yard, where it visited the nest hidden in a yew bush. This is what herons do when feeding in shallow water, shading the feeding area from the bright sun with their wings so the prey can be more easily seen.

As the sun set behind the hill above the valley the birds were still at it in the field, but there were many more, for nearby families had heard the news. I settled down in the hammock to enjoy the sounds and sights of man and beast living together in harmony. There need not be ignorance and mayhem. The great horned owl called his approval from the nearby forest. Suddenly he appeared, sailing slowly across the field. He was eager to find a few mice that might be exposed by the mowing.

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