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Watching with delight in spring as a male redbird presents his mate with an edible demonstration of his “fitness as a partner,” she comments, “In the avian world, a grub is an engagement ring.”

J. Drew Lanham, a wildlife ecologist at Clemson University who grew up in South Carolina, fondly remembered learning his local birds by the nicknames his grandmother taught him: redbirds, bee-martins, rain crows.

If I see a rat snake climbing the cherry laurel, I’m obliged to let the snake go on its way, knowing it will eat the baby redbirds hidden in a nest deep in the greenery.

Early in the morning, before the sun had thrown its first ray or the redbirds chirped their first note, all four children were gathered in the boys’ bedroom.

One room had great, big magnolias with redbirds, another had daylilies.