The Birds (Not the Hitchcock kind)

I love wild birds.

I’ve been feeding them for years.

I’m not sure how it started. One day it just did. I bought one feeder and very quickly found out that one was no where near enough, so I bought two more. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh. Somewhere around 11 I lost count.

I always take great pride in picking out seed that I think they will like. I buy two types of sunflowers and safflower, cracked corn and peanuts.

Out of all the birds that come to my feeders the Carolina Chickadee’s are my favorites. In case you don’t know they are small birds, tiny really. They have a beautiful sounding song and for their small size are fairly aggressive. They are usually always the first ones to arrive after I fill the feeders.

Probably my second favorite to the Chickadee’s is the Tufted Titmouse. They have big, round black eyes and a pointed crest on top of their head.

Cardinals hold a prominent position at my feeders. They swoop in and being a medium sized bird they usually get what they want. I love watching a bright red male cardinal feed his plain colored mate. It is one of the sweetest things in the world to watch. He will pick through the seed until he procures a black striped sunflower. Then he takes it over to his Mrs., and gently hands it to her mouth with his.

White-breasted Nuthatch’s visit quite frequently. I love they way they will take a sunflower seed out of the feeder and bang it on the deck rail to open it. They are a little bigger than a Chickadee only they look more aerodynamic in stature.

Junco’s or Snowbirds come in droves. Especially in the winter. What I like about them is that in the summer they change their look and sometimes you hardly recognize them. In the winter they are all fluffed up and appear to have more body to them.

I have some Downy woodpeckers that come out to eat in the summer. I have a family of red-bellied woodpeckers that bring their young to eat each season. Truth be told, I buy the peanuts for them. Woodpeckers love nuts. And I love them.

Sparrow’s and Wren’s of all sorts fly in for a feeding everyday. There are so many varieties of them it is hard to keep up. I would assume most are common house sparrows but I’ve spent time identifying them. I have limits.

Right now the finches are starting to make an appearance. Male Golden finches haven’t yet changed over to the yellow and black blazing color they possess in the spring, summer and fall. In about a month my thistle feeders will be covered with them, more waiting on the rails in line for a bite. Their song is also very beautiful to the ear as well.

Blue Jay’s stop by in the morning. They cry shrilly and swoop in. Since they are a large bird they don’t take much crap. I’ve seen them eat cat food while the cat has been standing outside next to the bowl. I read that they mimic hawk calls and I think that’s pretty cool.

Crow’s are always diving in too. I recently saw a murder of crows in my neighbors yard up the street. I was glad they weren’t at my house eating all my bird seed.

Grackle’s also make an appearance, usually in the morning. Sometimes the afternoon too. They are sort of scary looking with their incandescent black feathers and crazy colored eyes. They look like they just flew out of an oil slick. At first I wasn’t too keen on them but when I read up and found out that they are actually a large bird that will come to the defense of smaller birds in a fighting situation, I started liking them more.

In my front yard I see Orioles and Cat birds. I never see them at my deck feeders though. Cat birds are shrilly like Blue Jay’s only not as prettily colored. They will get up close and personal with you real fast and they will defend their nest be dive bombing your head.

There is only one bird that I see around my feeders that I’m not happy about and those are Cow birds. Cow birds are in the blackbird family and the females look mundane. They are brown. That’s it. Brown. They have a sort of a rounded head and look similar in body type to the cardinal. These nasty little boring birds go from nest to nest laying their eggs, letting the nest owner take care of their offspring. Sometimes the nest owner can’t keep up with feeding all her newborns and the newly slipped in ones, so some die. It’s a dark side of nature. Some would argue that the Cow birds are smart. I think they are a plague.

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A couple years ago I was sitting in my kitchen watching the birds come for their afternoon buffet. It had snowed a few days before and the deck had about a half inch of snow left on it. Around 3 pm the Snowbirds came en mass. There must have been about twenty or thirty of them out there. Suddenly one crashed into my sliding glass door. He lay there on the deck, stiff. I thought he may have broken his neck.

Acting as quickly as I could, I ran downstairs and grabbed the only thing I could find… my cat’s old, small crate carrier. I stepped outside and gently picked up the snowbird. I put him inside the carrier and took it into the house. I put a little handful of seed inside and some water in a plastic container. I didn’t see any blood on the bird and his head wasn’t lolling around so I hoped he hadn’t fatally hurt himself.

I sat there staring into the crate and after about 10 minutes he woke up. He hopped up on his little legs and looked at me. I could only guess in his mind he was thinking, “What the hell?”
He shook himself off, hopped around a bit in there and then started eating some food. He munched and munched away and then decided to hop into the water bowl. After that he hopped to the crate door and started staring at me. We were about an inch apart. I told him he was okay, and that he was safe and to go eat some more food. He hopped back to his food and started eating again. I doubt he understood what I said.

I kept him in the house for about 45 minutes. I wanted to make sure he was sufficiently fed and had suffered no injuries from his crash. When the time arrived to set him free I took the crate outside and I put it on the deck floor. I opened the door while squatting behind it.

He didn’t hop out right away, about thirty seconds went by. He finally emerged, hopped away from the crate a few inches, turned and looked at me and then flew away. I told him to come and visit me anytime. He and his friends were always welcome here.

So now it is a few years later. I’m sitting in my kitchen typing this blog entry and watching all the birds eat. There are several snow birds amongst the others out there. I wonder if one of them is him. I hope one of them is.

I really do.