It was a stroke of luck that this white mulberry tree, Morus alba, came to be living in my yard. Strugging at the base of a large poplar tree, from a seed no doubt sown by a passing bird, it was already full-grown when my husband and I decided to build a house on these six acres. Shaded and starved through the years, it was scraggly with many dead branches, and also had an unhealthy crack running down half its height, from which oozed a watery sap.

House building being a snake pit of problems large and small, and the tree being far enough from the site that it did not demand immediate attention, we neglected to cut it down. When the house was finished, we were overwhelmed by the accomplishment, and exhausted by it. We decided to wait until the next spring to remove the mulberry. When the next spring came, we were simply too lazy to tackle the whole job and settled instead for pruning out dead wood.

In June of that year, we were undeservedly rewarded for our sloth. We scarcely noticed at first, for birds of all description had been busily courting and squabbling over nesting territory since March. Then one day I took my coffee out onto the deck to enjoy the early morning solitude. As I sat there savoring the sweet breath of the wild roses that abound on our acres, I was startled by a violent trembling of the branches of the mulberry. Amid the quivering leaves, I saw brilliant flashes of scarlet, blue, crimson, orange, white and yellow, and subtle glimpses of brown, grey, and black. Retrieving a pair of binoculars, I watched, fascinated. A veritable "Who's Who Among Eastern Songbirds" darted in and out between the branches, tugging until the tree relinquished claim to its berries. There were robins, Baltimore orioles, bluebirds, cardinals, catbirds, purple finches, flycatchers, kingbirds, starlings, brown thrashers, cedar waxwings, yellow-shafted flickers, red-bellied woodpeckers, and even a solitary rose-breasted grosbeak -- all vying for room at the table of fruiting boughs. Some of these birds I had only seen pictured in books, visitors to backyards of others, but never to my own. The misshapen little tree, looking forlorn and doomed only days before, was transformed by the embellishment of dozens of gaily-feathered feasters.

In addition to its ability to lure reclusive birds to my yard, there is one other curious feature that recommends this tree and sets it apart from others: it sheds its leaves all at once on some silent cue known only to Nature and the mulberry. It is as though the leaves, in concert, whisper on the appointed night, "Get ready...get set...drop! " The next dawning finds it utterly bare, its spiky twigs wild and bold against the autumn sky, its dress of palest green-gold in a careless heap beneath the wanton boughs.

This particular tree will undoubtedly succumb to the years of neglect it has endured. In the firm belief that every yard should have trees and every tree should have birds, I have planted its successor nearby in an open sunny spot, to allow me to better witness one of nature's minor miracles. Let the feasting begin!