Woodcutting and birdwatching might seem to be contradictory endeavors.

One involves highly active industriousness – lots of movement and loud noise, the banging and thumping of shifting logs, plus the chainsaw’s high-decibel banshee shriek; the other calls for quiescence – a relaxed stillness and gentle tranquility, being unobtrusive, non-threatening, thus allowing for watchful and contemplative observation.

Aren’t the two undertakings mutually exclusive, ill-matched and impossibly conflicting?

Well, yes and no. I’ll try and explain.

A few days ago a tree-trimmer friend dropped off a dump truck load of mixed-hardwood logs. Good stuff, well-seasoned. Mostly ash and oak, walnut and maple, along with a bit of cherry, apple, and hickory. Several logs were eight or nine feet long and measured upwards of thirty inches in diameter.

He also promised another similar load would soon be forthcoming. Meaning I had to get to work ASAP before that second load arrived, just in case winter’s weather turned serious with sleet or snow.

Scrambling about an unstable pile of logs, while holding a chainsaw, with slippery ice underfoot, is neither safe nor fun. I needed to saw up what I had into stove-size lengths, split the bigger rounds, then wheelbarrow the readied firewood closer to the house and stack it into neat ricks.

It was a measly 19 degrees when I stepped outside, clutching my armload of lumberjack tools. I’d bundled up as best I could and still waddle. My exhaled breath made little clouds in the arctic air.

The sky was a clear, wintery blue. Though the morning sun provided little actual heat, it bathed the frozen landscape in a flood of brilliant light – a sort of psychological warmth.

Frost sparkled on the bark of the heaped logs.

When asked why I choose to heat with wood I generally say because I like the wonderful radiant heat and enjoy the physicality of maintaining my woodpile.

These simple pleasures require a lot of work – hard manual labor. But having an ample supply of ready-to-burn firewood on hand bestows a fundamental reassurance – like knowing your cellar’s shelves are filled with home-canned jars full of tasty fruits and vegetables. Whatever unexpected disaster the world or weather throws your way, you’ll still eat and stay warm… and this knowledge is absolutely priceless!

However, with each passing year, my aging body reflects that progression. The necessary sawing, splitting, and stacking of sufficient firewood to carry us through the winter becomes a little harder. Age may teach you how to work more efficiently, but time’s passage takes a relentless toll on how much strength and energy you have on a given day to accomplish certain tasks.

My woodcutting proficiency has noticeably slowed, while the length and frequency of the rests I need to take between bouts of work have steadily increased.

Starting fresh in the morning, I can work an hour before I need to sit and rest for five minutes. The next cycle is 45 minutes of work and 10 minutes rest. Then it’s 30 and 15.

Eventually, the ratio cycles flip — I rest more than I work. When I’ve reached the point of mostly sitting around and wasting time, I quit for the day.

I’m telling you this because it explains how I’ve recently been cutting wood and watching birds – not simultaneously but consecutively: work, tire, rest, birdwatch.

Birds seem to view a weary woodcutter sitting quietly atop an upturned log as totally harmless – even something of a curiosity, worthy of closer scrutiny. Not only do they immediately surround him, but often get almost in your face!

I first noticed this odd behavior decades ago when I began cutting firewood for other woodstoves. Turn the saw off, take a seat, and you’d soon be practically swarmed by flocks of chickadees, titmice, and sparrows.

Nuthatches will hang upside down on a limb barely an arm’s length away, while wrens will perch just as close, at eye level, and pitch a fit of what sounds like righteous indignation. Downey woodpeckers will come almost as close, and if there’s a hedge or bush nearby, cardinals will ensconce themselves in the tangles, add a bit of color and provide sharp pert-pert-pert whistles.

Yes, these are all dooryard birds, typically tolerant and friendly species. But they regularly approach much closer when I’m taking my woodcutting rest breaks.

It’s not typical behavior for a huge pileated woodpecker – the closest thing Ohio has to a pterodactyl, and one of the wildest, shyest, most easily-spooked birds in the woods. During my recent woodcutting session, one spent almost an hour investigating nearby trees 30-50 feet away. Occasionally the wary bird would pause to give me a thoughtful yellow-eyed stare. Yet after careful study, he ignored me as just another harmless stump-like lump. I was delighted!

Then there was the big redtailed hawk who sat in a riverbank sycamore for over an hour, like a job inspector watching a sluggard employee.

Finally, there were the robins — a huge squadron that numbered at least a couple hundred birds. En masse, they came winging low overhead in the afternoon, crossed the river, and settled into the lower trees and bankside bushes.

The sky had filled with clouds and darkened. A steady north wind was dropping the temperature. In the cold and gloom, robins were about the last birds I’d expected to see, and certainly not in such multitude.

You have to be optimistic about the future when confronted with such a remarkable congregation!

Red-breasted robins are the quintessential symbol of spring. Like jars of canned goods in the cellar, or cords of firewood stacked and ready to burn, robins are birds of hope and promise, delivering a positive reassurance of making it through to a better tomorrow.

Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].