Our Brutalist Birdbath

Introductions

Our Brutalist birdbath’s dull gray poured concrete displays only the vaguest of decorative touches. It it is so heavy that it nearly roots itself into the earth. Birds fly to it on its terms.

We bought it at Heckinger’s Hardware when we lived in southern Maryland, just south of the District of Columbia. We hauled it home, and lugged it to the tree-shrouded back yard of our modest church-owned manse. What a joy it would be to attract birds into our view!

I cannot remember how successful the bath was its first few years. Our daughters were born during that time, and I was serving my first solo church, and there were many distractions. It was spring-time for our family. I suspect I kept the bath filled with water during the hot and steamy summers, because I do things like that. More squirrels than birds may have enjoyed it.

In 1982 we moved our millstone-like birdbath to Illinois, and then, in 1989, to Ohio. That summer, as we settled into the suburban Cleveland home we were to call ours for three decades, I set it up in our back yard and filled it. 

Spring

Every spring for nearly fifty years, I have planted my feet firmly on the ground, and heave-hoed our birdbath’s shallow basin up on its pedestal.

Every spring I’ve worked diligently to set it just right. Water in that basin, like oil sealed in a carpenter’s level, tells me if it is only slightly out of kilter. After several tries, I either get it just right or give up. Most often it spends the summer pretty close to being level…not that the birds care.

And every spring it weighs just a little more than it weighed the year before.

Summer

We moved our birdbath with us to our retirement home in February, 2020, where it is most popular with the birds in late spring and early summer. The grassy rise outside our east windows is dotted with bird-filled trees. Robins, sparrows, flickers, finches, cardinals, crows, and more all fly to and from it during nesting season, taking a break from their parental responsibilities. One day we watched a hawk splash around in it. The other morning a pair of crows—side-by-side—was taking turns drinking from it.

I keep it filled with fresh water, occasionally scrubbing it clean with a wire brush to remove the greenish-black scum that grows on the bottom during summer’s long sun-filled days and moonlit nights. Once I ignored my housekeeping responsibilities toward our birdbath so long that mosquito larvae came to life in its dirty water.

As lazy summer drifts by, our birdbath’s visitors are reduced to thirsty squirrels. It needs filling less and less often, and I tend to forget it’s there, and its joys.

Autumn

Then, one day, it’s fall. Just like that. Fall’s rich odors are in the air, winter’s coming chill is in the wind.

Leaves and other debris float down into its dry basin. Once in a while, walking by, I brush them out of it onto the ground, and tell myself that’s it’s almost time to put it away for the winter. A thin sheet of ice floating on top of water left by rain the day before finally forces my hand. I don’t want to let water freeze hard and deep into it and risk cracking it, even though I am almost certain that would never happen.

Winter

One cool day I again plant my feet firmly in the ground and lift our birdbath’s basin off its pedestal. I used to carry both pieces of it off to shelter under a nearby tree for the winter, but now I just lean the basin against the pedestal right where it’s at.

Temperatures fall, rain is replaced by snow, and my disassembled birdbath withstands it all with nary a whimper. Concrete was made for such unfeeling. I can calculate how deep snow is by how far it reaches up the pedestal. It joins the barren trees and shrubs rooted in the grounds around it in promising the restart of life in a few months. Our birdbath may be inanimate but, strangely, even with its age spots, it is not dead.

I hope that before long I will again heave-ho our birdbath’s basin back up onto its pedestal. I trust the promise of life renewed, including mine.