Some years back, I purchased the book A Life Gone to the Birds by local celebrity Al Batt. I knew very little about birds outside of being able to identify some and having washed their droppings off my vehicle. I like to support local authors and I enjoy Al’s writing, which is why I bought a book about a topic in which I had little interest.
Oh, how the times change.
A couple years ago, Michelle convinced me we should put a bird feeder up in our front yard. Our giant evergreen tree had become a hotel for birds, and she thought it would be nice to see them outside of big flocks entering and exiting the innermost branches of our tree. I was lukewarm on the idea but, like obedient husbands everywhere, nodded and paid the vendor for the bird feeder.
We hung it across from the evergreen, near a maple tree. And the birds came!
And so did the squirrels.
We have two neighborhood squirrels. They like to run and chase and play. They also like to scatter birds at the bird feeder and hog out.
So we moved the feeder farther away from the tree. It was hanging on a shepherd’s hook, and we figured the squirrels couldn’t climb up it; they had simply been leaping down from the tree branches.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, though. The squirrels have figured out how to climb the shepherd’s hook to get to the food. Oh well, they need to eat too.
I’ve tried various types of food in the feeder. The least liked kind has tiny round balls of something called white millet. These are the last eaten if I buy that kind, only once the sunflower seeds and other desirable parts are gone. It claims to have added vitamins and minerals; maybe birds are like young kids who don’t want to eat what’s good for them.
The birds love the feed I get with bits of corn in it. If I put that out, it’s gone in no time. And the sunflower seeds are well attended too.
We’ve enjoyed watching a variety of birds show up. Our favorites are the male and female cardinals that like to hang out. It’s really cool when there’s one of each gender eating together - maybe it’s a date!
There are the mean blue jays that scare away all the other birds when they arrive. There are plenty of blackbirds, sparrows, and mourning doves as well. Luckily, we haven’t seen, or heard, a woodpecker in quite some time. That maple tree was almost doomed by a couple of those beaks.
Plus, we have a bunny who hops along and cleans up some of the scatterings. It’s interesting to watch some of the birds sweep their beaks through the food, grabbing some but sending plenty over the edge to the ground. The bunny appreciates that, as do the birds when a squirrel has taken up residence in the feeder, leaving them to the leavings. Michelle always tries to tell them to use their beaks to get the squirrel out of there, but birds don’t like to take advice.
Chewbacca, our cat, likes to lounge in the picture window in the afternoon sun. He’ll languidly watch the to-do at the bird feeder, but usually doesn’t get too excited. Even if I let him outside, he probably wouldn’t know what to do with all that wildlife.
So here we are, watching birds and enjoying the show. In the winter, I even make sure to dig a path through the snow so I can keep the birds who didn’t fly south fed. During the summer, I might have to fill the feeder a few times every day. We’ve had upwards of fifteen birds gathered around at one time.
And now we bought a second feeder. We placed it close to the evergreen tree, hoping maybe it would be a refuge when the squirrels have commandeered the original. The new one is in the shape of a picnic table, and it doesn’t hold as much food, but it will allow for maybe some more birds to eat at once.
And that’s more for us to watch. We’ve discovered the beauty of watching the birds and other nature in our front yard. It’s relaxing and also keeps us from looking at a screen. After all, Mother Nature provides the best show of all!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is flagitious, which means disgraceful or scandalous, as in, “It was a flagitious event in the squirrel community when one of their own was driven from the bird feeder by a flock of blue jays.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!