My backyard buddies were there for me on the shortest day of the year, lifting my spirits as I headed out into the cold.
The winter solstice rite I call it, summoning all my energy to do a lengthy bird count in the garden as I sense the cosmic tide is turning, winter is on the way out, spring beckons. I don’t need my watch, or the calendar to feel change in the air. There’s something innate and primordial, visceral, that sets my seasonal body clock. It’s most apparent in spring, but in mid-winter I sense it too. When I see the silver wattles burst into yellow flower in July, I’m aware these lattice-leafed trees read the same ancient message as I do.
Although the solstice has a spiritual context, the celestial event has an easy explanation in science – it’s when our planet’s poles are most extremely inclined toward or away from the star it orbits, the Sun.
For the southern winter solstice this year, on June 21, I was blessed with a sunny day, the morning frost soon being burned off, although a chill remained in the air all day.
A joyous day with wispy white clouds drifting above kunanyi/Mt Wellington, but remaining high enough so the sun’s rays could pick out the columns of the Organ Pipes in stripes of gold.
A day my garden avian companions enjoyed, too. Judging by their incessant singing, the countdown to spring also resonated with them.
Most vocal were the yellow-throated honeyeaters and this year their refrain was matched by a passing flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos
Out in the garden I picked from our lemon tree one of the last of two lemons, the fruit of summer which had somehow survived autumn and the start of winter, not so much the depredations of the cold winds but predation by brush-tailed possums, which curiously only chew the skin and never eat the soft centre.
With the lemon squeezed into a cup of hot water, I sat on a wooden bench at the end of the garden to determine what bird species were about, beyond the yellowthroats and black cockatoos.
Although spring and autumn is the prime time for spotting unusual species when migrants pass through the garden, there can be surprises in winter. Resident birds often leave the breeding territories of summer and wander the countryside. In the bleakest, coldest months I have been warmed by the sight of uncommon birds in a suburban environment, including rainforest species like the pink robin, olive whistler and strong-billed honeyeater.
No rarities this year. During a final check for birds as the sun set at 4.42pm my eyes settled on the last lemon, the ghost of summer, the colour of its pastel-yellow skin strangely resembling that of the muted sun dropping behind the mountain.