For The Birds
My life these days seems to have gone to the birds. Remember last summer when it was all about hawks for a while after I watched that one die on a live wire on Odana Road and took it to the police? For two weeks afterward I was inundated with close encounters with raptors. This new bird thing started when I was in Maine and a hummingbird got trapped in the garage. No amount of cajoling would entice him to fly out on his own, so I went up on a step ladder and plucked him out of the corner and took him outside. I sat with him in my open palm for a couple of minutes while he regained his composure and then he flew off. Gosh, that is the closest thing to magic there is; holding that shiny, emerald in your hand. It's like holding a fairy!
When I got home from Maine, I decided to put up bird feeders for the first time. Don't tell the birds, but I put them out by the front window so the cat would have something to keep him entertained-and they certainly do! I tinkered with it a dozen times, crawling in and out of the Hosta plants and trying to avoid all of the baby bunnies and ground squirrels that live under there. I was kinda thinking that I probably was investing a lot of time and effort on getting the pole straight and the feeders the right height and then the birdies wouldn't visit. I no sooner got in the house when I looked out (after hearing Cooper 'Ack Ack Acking' ) and the feeder was full of purple finches. The next day when I went out to adjust the feeder, a wee Yellow Finch landed right on my shoulder and sat there for 15 seconds or so while I froze in my tracks in disbelief.
Late last week, reports of an 'injured bird outside in the dooryard' started coming in from the kids. I went to look and discovered that it was a Mama Killdeer. She wasn't hurt, but she had made a nest and laid three eggs in the landscaping stones in one of the medians in the middle of the parking lot!
When I got home from Maine, I decided to put up bird feeders for the first time. Don't tell the birds, but I put them out by the front window so the cat would have something to keep him entertained-and they certainly do! I tinkered with it a dozen times, crawling in and out of the Hosta plants and trying to avoid all of the baby bunnies and ground squirrels that live under there. I was kinda thinking that I probably was investing a lot of time and effort on getting the pole straight and the feeders the right height and then the birdies wouldn't visit. I no sooner got in the house when I looked out (after hearing Cooper 'Ack Ack Acking' ) and the feeder was full of purple finches. The next day when I went out to adjust the feeder, a wee Yellow Finch landed right on my shoulder and sat there for 15 seconds or so while I froze in my tracks in disbelief.
Late last week, reports of an 'injured bird outside in the dooryard' started coming in from the kids. I went to look and discovered that it was a Mama Killdeer. She wasn't hurt, but she had made a nest and laid three eggs in the landscaping stones in one of the medians in the middle of the parking lot!
I sent an email to our entire building explaining that she was nesting and not hurt and I threatening the life of anyone who bothered her. Now to wait for the itty bitty babies to arrive and keep them safe from the tons of various rubber and steel that careens around back there as the wee ones learn to totter about!
And the cherry on the bird sundae that is my life happened on Saturday while I was driving home from the library. I was sitting at a four-way stop when a Starling decided to fly in my open sunroof and make himself at home in the back seat. 'Making himself at home' would imply that he was comfortable back there though and he wasn't. He was flapping around panicked, and I was Tippi Hendren-ing in the front seat. I finally got calmed down and got through the stop sign, pulled over and opened the doors. Both back doors, both front doors and the sun roof and he still couldn't find his way out. They don't call them 'bird brains' for nothing! I finally got a gentle hold of him and released him into the wild...to fly into someone else's sunroof. I'm not an Uber you know! Especially since I was paid with a handful of bird poo! I do intend to petition that their name be changed to 'Startlings' though. Because they certainly are when they are going all Hitchcockian in your Huyndai!
Isn't it weird how occurrences happen one after the other like that? I guess Mother Nature liks a good bundle deal as well as the next gal!
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