The toughest month of all

I nearly stopped feeding the birds after being greeted in my yard by a particularly loud cardinal singing overtop hundreds of other avian creatures on a March day where the mercury rose close to 80.
Whether that particular bird sang for a mate, I do not know. Frankly, I'm not 100 percent sure the practically glowing red bird was a cardinal, because by the time I got my wife's attention to bring the binoculars, it had flown.
It remained brightly at the edge of my vision while perched. The information coming from heights of the tree on my neighbor's property reached my ears better than my eyes.
Whatever it was, the bird had a long, loud and persistent call for those minutes. It sang like I've never heard.
The effect of all the songs arrested me in mid dog walk. I don't think I've ever noticed as many calls before, not even in the deepest depth of woods.
The same day, not wanting to get behind in the yard any more than I already am, I grabbed my shovel to work on one of my many earthmoving projects.
Beginning as more cleanup of one of last year's projects than anything else, I still threw dirt around for several hours, not only moving dirt so that it sloped away from my foundation, but also trying to step down the hillside for eventual planting.
I had lots of little companions.
My basket-shaped birdfeeder stood on its shepherd's crook at the corner of the house, and persistent little goldfinches kept swooping down on it.
The farther I moved from the feeder, the more they came — wearing their duller winter colors, drab grey with streaks of white and black.
In summer, goldfinches remind me of escaped parakeets, having molted and grown vivid yellow feathers back. They're not called goldfinches for nothing.
I see a lot of goldfinches year round. Members of this species best realized that my plantings of sunflowers and allowing volunteer thistles to grow in spring and summer came from my desire to benefit wildlife. And goldfinches similarly started descending first to eat the sunflower seeds that I filled up my one feeder with.
For weeks, I saw no reason to feed the birds this winter until the temperature dropped to the teens and stayed there. 
Slate-sided juncos joined goldfinches on the ground under the feeder at first. They disappeared and left mostly finches and a few common sparrows.
While digging there, I noticed my shovel turned up a profusion of worms. I figured that with the  almost "summery" days and with more food becoming available soon, that it was okay just to let the birds peck the last few seeds out of the feeder and call it a season.
Well, an online link to eNature.com sent to me from the National Wildlife Federation arrived in my inbox just in time to tell me that I couldn't be more wrong.
"March is the most difficult month of the year for birds to find adequate food to survive winter in most of North America," the article said. "That’s because the supplies of natural food....last year’s seeds, fruits, berries and insect eggs and larvae...are at their lowest levels after months of birds feeding on them."  
All of last year's seeds and berries have been eaten by this time, it goes on to say. I can confirm that in my yard — with birds having to compete for food not only with each other, but also with deer that consumed berries on my holly shrubs by starting with the leaves and branches and chewing every morsel off right to the stem. Little if any food is left.
So armed with the correct information, I've happily filled my birdfeeder several times since and watched as finches flocked to it. Too many for the seeds supply, in fact, so I've also scattered some on the ground, too.  
I'm going to have to stop being so measured in putting out birdseed and show greater empathy for the creatures in their toughest month of the year.