As may be true for many of you, the news lately has got me down. Even logging onto the computer has become a daily exercise in dodging stories I don’t want to see. To help me cope, I’ve been taking some time from writing to handle the usual spring business, planting, weeding, and getting used to watching people I’ve paid do the the heavy lifting.

We changed our front yard to California natives six springs ago, and it is finally bearing fruit. The berries and flowers are bringing in native bees, butterflies, and a steady stream of hummingbirds. We have a nice balance of bird feeders going with a variety of offerings, and everyone is enjoying the water features.

Our tube feeder has a cage around that is supposed to admit only the smallest songbirds: goldfinches and pine siskins. These little ones have turned their beaks up at the niger thistle this year, so the feeder is filled (and emptied) daily with $49/bag already-shelled and chipped sunflower seed. Geez, you’d think birds could at least shell their own seeds. This expensive fare is naturally attractive to everyone else, who often perch on top and try to figure out how to get inside the cage. The bright red house finches do manage to squeeze through and terrorize the little birds.

For a while earlier in the spring we shared our days with a dozen brilliant yellow American goldfinches, but they moved on, leaving behind their smaller cousins, the lesser goldfinches.

A nest of lessers fledged two days ago, and we’ve all spent our time glued to the front window watching these five tiny songbirds learn to navigate the world. Their parents showed them the feeder, but squeezing inside the cage and staying on those slippery plastic perches with scary-big house finches muscling in has proven a challenge. The babies often flip over backwards and fall to the bottom of the cage where they flap around trying to right themselves. Thank goodness the cage has a bottom, since fledglings can take several days to figure out the flying thing, and with feral cats sneaking into the yard, danger lurks!

The fledglings have mastered the flutter from the feeder to the birdbath, where they tip gingerly into the water and drink. They look so proud of themselves, all five identical babies lined up sipping. No one has tried bathing yet. At the end of a long day fluttering from the feeder to the bath and back, they head up near the nest in the dogwood overhead and settle on a branch, snuggling together in this unseasonably cold May.

My advice for how to survive in trying times: turn off the news and install a bird bath in the yard. I’ve heard meditation also works well, but I’ve found mediation is so much easier for me when I have something to look at. Missing the point, I know. Or maybe not?

How are you coping? Any ideas you’d like to share?