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Jean Herring of High Point called me last month with a warm story on a bitter cold winter’s day.

“We hung a Christmas bird seed wreath,” she said. The wreath was a gift from her daughter Andrea Morris, also of High Point.

You’ve seen them — they’re wreath-shaped birdseed buffets. I’ve given them to friends myself, although I’ve never had one in my yard.
After listening to Herring, I just may have to treat myself — and my birds — to one.

As Herring looked out her window, she saw birds flocking to the food.

“There were bossy mockingbirds, elite bluebirds, lowly sparrows, wrens, towhees, nuthatches, cardinals, woodpeckers and titmice,” she said. “And all of a sudden, it just hit my heart that these birds were sharing.”

If you’ve ever provided your backyard birds a feeder, you know the feathered frenzy that can erupt when “alpha” birds such as mockingbirds swoop in and flush away all the competition so they can savor the seeds themselves.

Bluebirds are elusive, and it’s a rarity that one visits Herring’s backyard — or mine.

The poor sparrows usually are reconciled to picking through the leftovers. Wrens and woodpeckers generally sound a warning if anyone — fowl or human — nears their nest or their food source. And although cardinals, titmice and towhees are often more tolerant of smaller species such as chickadees, time at the feeder is usually segregated.

But not on that winter’s day. Not at Herring’s house.

It has been a bitter winter, and irrational as it is, a lot of us worry about the birds this time of year.

When Herring told about the birds that flocked to the birdseed wreath by her kitchen window, I decided to give it a try myself. My husband had picked up a rustic piece of yard art made from twigs last summer at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market, and we moved it from the flower garden to the deck for the holidays.

For now, this stick sculpture sits on our deck table. After talking with Herring, I decided to sprinkle sunflower seeds on it. Once I had covered the sticks, I decided to sprinkle more seeds on the empty flower pots.

Oh, Herring was so right. The birds came out of hiding and now put on a daily show just outside my family room. Yes, I love backyard birding in the spring and summer but there’s something more adventurous and inspiring about admiring them in the winter.

The towhees are fluffed out like all of us in our cold-weather gear. The goldfinches no longer sport their golden summer jackets; instead they wear a gray-green coat. The brilliant male cardinals take your breath away, and they share the food with their taupe-colored mates.

As I write this column, I hear the sweet sounds of chirping on my deck. I glance out the window and see a majestic cardinal perched on top of the cone as a chickadee burrows into the sticks for seeds. A gray bird that might be a mockingbird is already collecting twigs and stuffing them into the crook of a bare tree.

The birds don’t seem a bit territorial and scatter only when I try to sneak out the door to take a photo.

Herring’s observation is right on point. When the weather is rough, birds share. Perhaps there’s a lesson there for all of us.

“If we all humans could take a lesson from them, wouldn’t that be amazing?” Herring said. “Nobody is trying to knock somebody else out of the way. They’re all letting each other have food. It just touched my heart.”

And ours, too.

Recycling update

Paula Stober of Greensboro wrote to share a recycling resource in response to the January column about the three “new” recycling pledges I’ve adopted for 2011: repair, redirect and rediscover.

“Loved your article,” she wrote. “Please write more about recycling and pass on any ideas. Here’s one: www.Earth911.org. It will help people find places to recycle (nearly) everything. They have a listserv that has lots of interesting articles each week.”

I need to check out the site. A couple of years ago, I wrote about a local business that recycled batteries. I always felt guilty tossing dead batteries in the trash, so I began collecting them in a container in my laundry room. Two years later, I had a heavy box containing more than 100 batteries.

I proudly took the container back to this store a couple of weeks ago and presented my offering of used AAA, AA and nine-volt batteries and even a few coinlike charges for book lights and the like.

The store manager graciously took my box and picked through the bounty. He removed three rechargeable batteries and said, “The good news is that we can recycle these. The bad news is that it costs us too much to recycle (regular) batteries, so we no longer provide that service.”

With that he pitched all those lifeless batteries into the trash.

He tried to console me with his opinion that the batteries really wouldn’t hurt the landfill, so it was relatively safe to throw them away.

To say the least, I was and still am disappointed. If anyone has found a place that will recycle batteries, please let me know. I just can’t stand to throw them away.

Contact Cathy Weaver at CWeaverNR@gmail.com