Winter Dance

(Reprinted from March 13, 1963)

The break came, warm, bright sunlight after a night of way below zero, and March bowed in all gold and white with a gentle breeze. My neighbors were delighted. Purple finches started polishing up their songs, and chickadees sang all day long.

It was the end of a lovely day and dusk hovered nearby. I put cracked corn out behind the kitchen door for the last of the day-time guests, the ruffed grouse, and I was pleased to see His Highness arrive and, after looking up to see if I was watching from the window, he pecked daintily at his dinner.

It was perhaps five minutes later that I looked out again and I was astounded, for he was dancing, wings drooped, tail fanned, ruff spread, but I could not see anyone for whom he was dancing. He shook his fluffy ruff and then I saw her coming slowly from under a low hanging balsam and I was amazed. For on the ground there was 18-inch deep snow. To be sure where he danced it was beaten down to a hard crust, hard enough to hold me, for all winter long Little People, particularly big fat blue jays, have galumphed around settling the snow.

The ruffed grouse turned in the direction of the lady grouse and danced. She came slowly, eyeing his performance, and also eyeing the cracked corn. She stopped and proceeded to make a large detour around her dancing suitor, even though this meant plowing through untrodden snow which she had to break by pure muscle; pushing.

She made it and gobbled a few bits of corn and then leaped straight up into the air, flew about four feet and came down where there was more corn and hastily ate some more. Meanwhile His Highness danced in a circle. His dragging wing feathers rasped against the snow. He moved from the beaten down area to get near his would be wife and was in new snow up to his neck. This did not stop his dance. He continued, although his fanned tail went completely off balance and was carried lopsided. He looked like a miniature snowplow with wings, breast and tail displacing the white crystals as his feet moved him forward in a rhythmic pattern.

He shook his head, back and forth, back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock, every feather in his fluffed ruff daintily moving, and he was so carried away with his artistry, with the gentle warmth of spring that he began to run, pursuing his would-be wife who almost chocked as she tried to gulp cracked corn. She timed it with exactness, one last gobble of corn and then a thunder of wings just as he came within a foot of her, and she rose high in the air and landed about 12 feet away in soft snow, only her neck sticking out. She clucked and plowed through the stuff for about three feet, starting a circle that would bring her back to her evening meal. Once more she made it while His Highness ignored dinner so he could dance. And once more he overplayed his hand. He rushed and she flew straight up into an old popple.

My nose grew cold as I pressed against the window, peeking at my neighbors, observing their very, very private lives. I ached as I heard the crunching drag of the taunt wings against snow as he danced. I shivered as I saw him, in his complete engrossment with his courting, get off the beaten down spot and dance into a drift, pride too great to permit him to look down to see just where he was going.

She stared down from above, head twitching right and left, looking at the corn below, watching the handsome male showoff, and she finally was reconciled and jumped to a small branch that bent under her weight, and moved far out on its tip and nipped a bud, when obviously what she wanted was corn.

He never stopped dancing, he never lost face. He did manage to make one more turn, face the cabin and find hard snow. He pranced and strutted, dragged his wings and, shaking his head he stared with great dignity right at the window at me where I watched agog.

It must have been a most embarrassing moment, what with her rushing away, then sitting above and looking down at him while she budded, and I stood there observing that he had been turned down. But he pretended that he hadn’t been, that this was just a dance he enjoyed. He turned once more, headed north, which meant that he would have to jump the wide path I have beaten down as I go to the glory hold; a spot far in back where blue jays grab egg shells and scream in disgust at coffee grounds and grapefruit rinds.

He came to the path and without even stopping or looking down, or losing a step, jumped it and broke the virgin white snow with his breast as he danced along, shaking his head, ruff all fluffed out, tail once more balanced, and wing tips cutting a wide swath that sent a snow swath behind him. Ten, 20, 30 feet he danced, cutting around a little oak, avoiding a small white pine, 50, 60 feet he went, sometimes finding solid ground for his dancing feet as he passed over a log, then suddenly plunging into soft snow that left only his ruffed neck and intent face visible, 70 feet he made and the last I saw of him as he never broke step was when he entered the young white pine clump and twilight’s blue shadows on snow enveloped him.

He has come again and again since that March 1 dance of love, but he has never had his would-be wife with him. He comes for breakfast and he comes at 6:30 in the evening. But he is always alone, and he has not danced since.

Dawns sound like dawns in May, filled with the sweet singing of birds. Chickadees sing from east and west, from north and south, and now the purple finches do more than talk as daybreaks. They sing. Not the rich, trilling melodies of June, but half strains of melody, soft and sweet and the woods is alive with song.

Nuthatches no longer fly wildly to drive another away. Now they fly with different goals, and their talk is loud and constant.

Blue jays are raucous and ever on guard. It was a warm morning, all of 20 above, a spring-like morning of sunshine and jays screamed until the woods rang. They were concentrated in a scrub oak next to a spruce and their noise was so great that a chickadee winged out to investigate. I spied through field glasses and could see no reason for the endless screeching, and so I put on high boots and headed for the tree. Once off my path snow as over the tops of the boots. I was crotch-deep in snow that had a nasty crust, but I plowed through. I found nothing in the trees. I found no tracks under the tree. I suspected they had been harassing a little owl which should never have ventured into the territory.

Blue jays are becoming more and more romantic, gurgling, trilling, acting like lady sopranos practicing scales. And their appetites are increasing, as are those of the red squirrels. And their boldness knows no bounds. I fight a losing battle to keep them in their designated feeding areas so finches and nuthatches, woodpeckers and chickadees may eat in peace. Only the arrival of the hawk stills their boisterous manners, and I chase him by ringing the old cowbell until the woods echo and quiver.

Above all the din, racket and screeching, is sweet music, for despite snow and cold, spring is singing in the north country.

(The late Maggie Gahagan wrote her Pine Whispers column for the 16 years she edited and owned The North Woods Call.)
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