Quotes from Julie Zickefoose

The presence of a single bird can change everything for one who appreciates them.

You could do worse than to spend your days staring at blue jays.

One of our favorite spring rituals is to buy packs of white goose feathers at a craft store, climb our bird-watching tower, and stand, feathers in our outstretched fingers, until tree swallows gather the courage to hover close, snatch them, and bear them off to their nest.

The more I work with birds, the more I believe in the undreamt, the things we are not given to know.

For the record, even a turkey vulture won't eat a processed chicken nugget. I stopped buying them for my son when I saw the vultures picking around them.

I don't mind scrambling around in public after baby birds and trapped butterflies. I don't mind the strange looks and smirks that inevitably follow such activities. I can't walk by creatures in need. And I get to take home the greatest treasure of all: a warm glow, knowing that one more turtle will lay her eggs; one more dove, one more skipper will fly because I stopped to help.

Barn swallows, like phoebes, are worth it. Watch swallows skim low over the lawn in the sidelight of a summer evening; watch a phoebe whirl out to snap up a passing crane fly, then fetch up on a dead branch, and then imagine the scene without their spark.

Solitude encourages reflection and productivity, if you're prepared for it.

We've had tufted titmice land on our hammock and pull our hair as we snooze on spring days, so eager are they to line their nests with the finest.

I have recently read how many million square miles of backyards there are in this country. Think what a difference it would make if even a sizable portion of these backyards were managed according to nature's rhythm rather than people's; if only the owners tried for maximum diversity because of their love of living things rather than maximum order and limitation because of human exclusivity. ---- Norman Lavers