Sometime back in the early spring, a tiny choke cherry seed germinated in the high and wild grass between my deck and the nearby edge of my side woods.

At first, it was slow to grow, outdone as it were by the vigor of the early grass and emerging weeds. But then as days grew longer and the soil warmer, it took root. It went unnoticed for some time, being so short, it escaped the blade of my mower, and was then free to grow without the shade of the grass: it rapidly reached for the summer sun.

With the heat of the summer, the days of travel and vacations, the season passed quickly, and such excuses were all I needed to skip mowing that small patch of lawn where the choke cherry grew. When the summer sun began to fade and the shadows grew long across the lawn, I noticed the little choke cherry had grown into a six-foot-high weed, ripe with crimson berries.

On an unusually warm afternoon in early October while I sat on the deck reading in the sun, I heard the distinct call note of a red-eyed vireo emanating from within the dappled light of my side woods. I put the book aside and rose to my feet to see two red-eyed vireos plucking the ripe berries of the choke cherry. The vireos swayed with the stalks, wings fluttering for their balance, the weed laying heavy with their weight and the rich supply of fruit.

Red-eyed vireos migrate a long way, arriving in mid-spring. I know when they are here by the addition of their incessant song to the deafening spring chorus. It’s distinct and sounds a bit like a robin in a hurry, but with a richness beyond superlatives. They are a common bird but are more often heard than seen, as the male spends the majority of its time in the high canopy.

Last summer, their songs drifted lazily from the glistening green leaves of the oak trees around my yard — yet in all of that time, even with the singing from sunrise to early dusk, I might have seen them on only a few occasions. So this sighting on the choke cherry, just a few feet from where I stood, was a real thrill.

During that same afternoon on the deck, I spotted a female scarlet tanager. It slipped off a hemlock bough and alighted on a choke cherry stalk burdened heavy with berries. Immediately, others joined her, and the big weed looked as if it were a pear tree, full with the light green feathered female tanagers, now feeding on the fruit.

Soon, immature American redstarts, a common wood warbler, covered the weed with their orange plumage. The olive hues of a worm-eating warbler appeared next, as it flitted about the choke cherry, and suddenly the weed was plucked clean of its fruit and gleaned of its insects. On some unknown cue, all of the birds flew off simultaneously, andthe choke cherry regained its dignified composure and faced the empty autumn sun.

I went back to my reading, knowing these migrants were now fueled and ready to fly, and I realized then that what we consider useless weeds, the product of unsightly forgotten waysides, are in fact the essential sources of sustenance for the birds we enjoy. Perhaps next spring we might all “forget” to mow a small patch of our lawns.

Robert Tougias is a Colchester-based birder. You may ask questions at rtougias@snet.net.