Maybe We Should Leave Birds Alone

Ms. Leendertz has written books on wildlife and the seasons. She wrote from Bristol, England.

In September the light falls low and golden across my garden, illuminating the panes of the emptying greenhouse and picking out crab apples and the pear tree’s turning leaves.

It would normally be time for me to get the bird feeders out and fill them with goodness: fatty peanuts and nutritious seeds to keep tiny bird bodies warm and healthy through the cold autumn and winter days and nights. Most years my garden becomes a theater of delicate, fluttering wings on frosty mornings, squabbles at the feeder in the snow, and an ever-changing roll........

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