Verdins and Mindful Birding Lessons
By Morrigan DeVito
If you follow a Verdin’s whistling song, it will lead you to the present. Will you listen and stay with it?
Verdins made me grateful to live in the Mojave Desert after a lifetime of not being present with it. Unique to the Southwest, they are the only North American songbird in their family, Remizidae, which makes me feel so lucky to share space with them. Their song, bright as a sunny day, is the chorus of my love for the desert. But I spent most of my life never knowing that they sang all around me in Las Vegas, from urban parks to the creosote flying by on the highway, from childhood to early adulthood. It took my deliberate resolution to learn how to love the Mojave to really be present in nature. When you make the intention to pay attention, to stay with the desert in its silences, you realize the quiet is only a pause between breaths.
Imagine my surprise when I read that the Verdin was “plain” and “unremarkable” in my field guides. Some descriptions at least say that they only “seem that way at first glance.” But what if they are only given one glance? If a first glance is all we have, then I hope to cultivate a long first glance at the Verdin and other birds by leading mindful birding events. It takes a long first glance to see their delicate yet resilient beauty, their tiny bills open, singing. Despite their frequency in Las Vegas, Verdins are often the stars of the mindful birding events, chipping loudly to each other over the sounds of airplanes and traffic. It takes attention, the kind that flourishes in mindful birding, for plain to become precious.
It’s normal for present-focused attention to be hard when our thoughts are like grains of sand in the desert; always shifting. Sometimes they sweep over us like dust storms, other times you don’t even realize they’re moving. When I started to pay attention to the desert, I realized my attention was like a Verdin flying across the sands of my thoughts– landing and lifting, lifting and landing, fluttering between past and future, daydreams and ruminations. But mindfulness helped me settle my “Verdin of attention” and be present with the desert and my thoughts with openness, curiosity, and nonjudgement.
Constantly calling, Verdins restlessly hop through the thorny desert scrub as they search for insects to eat. While Verdins brought my presence to the Mojave Desert, it is the plants who root me here. Once, all of the plants looked the same. I didn’t know the unique glossy texture of a creosote leaf from the soft sheen of a brittlebush or truly heard the wind whooshing through saltbushes. I had not yet run my fingers over the thorns of mesquites and acacias, nor had I sat under a palo verde and watched the yellow blossoms transform into sunny-cheeked Verdins, their busy bodies held by steady, slender green limbs.
Mindful birding helped me make these connections. Instead of my attention being restless like a Verdin, I try to hold it like a palo verde, steady yet flexible. It’s natural for thoughts to wander, but mindful birding helps me redirect to the present, like a branch swaying and settling after a Verdin hops to another. When I stay with a Verdin in a palo verde, I find carpenter bees coming to the blossoms, ants greeting each other in sap slickened divots, the Verdin now sticking its head in a flower. If I didn’t slow down, would I have seen the Verdin sipping nectar from a golden cup?
Verdin nests are a staccato rhythm across the desert, scraps of sharp twigs woven together like pointy wicker baskets. After slowing down in nature, I started seeing more and more of these nests. I didn’t know they all belonged to Verdins at first, but they are one of the few birds to build nests throughout the year, some for roosting and some for raising young. To deal with the desert extremes, they face their low nest entrance towards the wind to stay cool in the summer and build nests with more insulation to stay warm in the winter. The resilience of Verdins, who stick with our freezing winters and searing summers, reminds me of the emotional resilience I’ve learned through mindfulness and mindful birding. Instead of wishing to be somewhere else, I’m making myself at home in the present, trusting that uncomfortable feelings will pass just like our long nights and summers always do. Sometimes you just have to weave a new nest.
After connecting with birds and plants, I began connecting with other people who shared my love for birds and the Mojave Desert. Although Verdins tend to be solitary, birding doesn’t have to be. There are many ways to be a birder, but I’ve found my community in mindful birding. What we call “mindful birding” is the way that comes most naturally to me, a way that is not so focused on seeking out birds or list-making. Unlike the restless Verdins, I don’t want to move so quickly. I’d rather be like the palo verde, quiet and still as I let birds come to me. Without mindful birding, I may not have learned so much about my attention and the desert. But when we move slowly, our lessons grow deep, resilient roots like desert plants.
When I leave the Mojave Desert, I hope the last sound I hear is a Verdin singing me goodbye. But for now, mindful birding helps me stay present, grateful to live in the landscape that created them.
Morrigan DeVito is a member of the Mindful Birding Network and leads mindful birding events for the Red Rock Audubon Society in Las Vegas, NV.
