Bonus Birds

 

We have a bird feeder. We are pretty good about keeping it stocked, though sometimes I get so bothered by the mess that I don’t fill it for a week or two. Birds are messy eaters. They flick seeds away while they are trying to get down to the good stuff. Before long there are seeds all over the back porch. It will need to be swept before the feed can attract any of the critters that we don’t want to attract to our back porch (the night foragers).

Also on our back porch are pots with various plantings: potatoes, peas, and flowers. Sometimes after the potatoes, peas or whatnot have been harvested, the bird seeds will have landed in the pots and begin to sprout. We had a mystery plant growing in one of our pots this summer which we originally thought might be corn (there is corn in the bird feed). As it developed, we decided it was millet. Now the tassels of the millet have developed enough so that the birds have noticed them and are feeding off the seeds.

It is oddly satisfying seeing four or five birds perched on a stalk or the wire frame around it, feeding on the plant we didn’t plant. It’s like a bonus. We sneak a look out the window, trying not to scare them off. Finches, sparrows and other LBJ’s (little brown jobs). No, we are not great birders. I can’t always tell you what kind of bird it is that is visiting us. We just enjoy watching them. Interactions that we see as cute, the birds may see differently. They chase each other off and scold each other. Bullies. But they are so small and delicate flitting this way and that, defying gravity, that we can’t take them seriously as mean or scary. We are just big lumbering humans after all.

Watching nature be nature is emotionally satisfying. Never mind the mess; I need to get that bird feeder filled up.

 

birds flit about

gathering necessaries

autumn’s approach

Star Liner