I like to think of myself as a bird
lover.
Not the kind that travels the country for bird –watching expeditions or
one of those who keeps a life list of birds spotted and then brags about it to
his friends. No, I’m more of a living room bird lover, the kind who likes to
look out the living room window and then remark, “Hey, there’s a chickadee.”
Not that chickadees are the only birds I can identify, but they are one of the
four or five that I know about who live in my neighborhood. Because of my love
of birds, over the years I’ve tried to help the little creatures that flit
about my yard. My first attempt beginning several years ago was to help provide
housing for the little winged dustballs.
Over the years, I have invested a small bundle in birdhouses
that I have built or bought and then mounted around the yard, defacing several
trees in the process. So far, I have had exactly zero birds take up residence
in my birdhouses. What I generally find is that the winged midgets live in
houses of their own construction instead of my spacious and attractive
proffered lodgings. My two-story, 12-room purple martin house is a case in
point. I erected the apartment dwelling in 2010, but only one family of mud
swallows inspected the place, sniffed, (imperiously, it seemed to me) and then
left. Since then, a few other birds have stopped by, but none has stayed more
than a week. I think that the business of selling birdhouses is a vast
rightwing conspiracy foisted on us bird lovers by handcrafters at flea markets
and craft shows. Since lodging birds hasn’t worked out very well, I have
adopted other means of supporting them.
I’m a bird feeder. I like feeding birds, probably because
they remind me of my own habits. I get a kick out of watching the greedy little
devils buzz around my feeders and devour my seeds like there is no tomorrow. Feeding
the birds after the feeders have been empty for a day or so is a special treat.
The fuzzy little chatterboxes just can’t wait for me to fill their larder. I
can put out seeds anytime during the day and have half-dozen birds dive-bombing
me before I put away the ladder. Those that wait ‘till I am finished generally
sit on a nearby branch and scold me for being late with the food. After the
feeders are full, it’s a hoot watching them chase each other away and then
squawk or chirp proudly as they strut around the four feeders before they to
gorge on my largess. But, bird feeding has also caused a number of problems. Beyond
the mere cost of feeders, seeds, oranges, sugar and suet, I have had problems
in keeping birds happy. In fact, it has been a long struggle between me, the
birds, and several other critters that take pleasure in foiling my attempts to
be a responsible birder.
The critters that have caused the biggest problems are our
local bears. Those beggars are determined to eat my seeds and, in the process,
wreck my feeders. They generally wreak havoc early in the spring. Their springtime
marauding happens when the lazy old bears wake up from a long winter’s nap only
to learn that the rest of the world (that supplies their food) is not yet fully
awake. Then, they turn to my feeders. I have also had bear problems later in
the year when the mama drives away her youngster so she can receive the affections
of the nearest male. The youngsters are often not skilled at finding food but
they seem to find my feeders like a dog after a bitch in heat.
I wouldn’t mind if the wooly bruins just ate the seeds, but
no, they have to bend the steel pole holding the feeders, tear the tube feeders
from their hooks then break everything else to get at the seeds. More than
once, the black devils have carried away the feeders entirely, never to be
found again. My poor, starving birds have to wait for me to find time in my
busy retirement schedule to trek to the hardware store for replacement parts
and then re-build the feeding platform and re-hang a new set of feeders. It
makes me tired just thinking about it.
Bears aren’t the only culprits. We seem to have our share of
hungry raccoons also. Early one morning, I found four of the mangy furballs,
all sitting in my platform feeder happily munching away. It is incredible how
much they can eat in one night. I learned just how much the hard way when I
left a 50 pound bag of sunflower seeds in the back of the pick-up truck that
was parked outside. Some wily raccoon sniffed out my mistake, spread the word
to all his friends in the neighborhood, and consumed a large share of the bag
in one night.
Smaller crittters also attack my bird food. I have a plentiful
supply of red squirrels, fox squirrels and chipmucks who regularly attend the
feeders. Of course, I discourage their direct attacks with the use of an
inverted can mounted on the pole that supports the feeders. That helps a
little. The birds don’t help though, as they shovel off seeds to the ground
where the assorted buggers with tails gather for the bounty and laugh at the
dog’s feeble attempts to chase them into submission.
I put out a variety of food for birds; sunflower seeds,
nyger, suet, safflower and of course, oranges and sugar water for orioles and
hummers. The suet is a mistake since it attracts woodpeckers. The woodpeckers
go from my suet to the logs on my house or the boards on my barn to peck away
for their desert. My barn has several long rows of holes made by peckers who
were searching for bugs on my board and batten. So far, the logs on my house
are still intact as I keep alert for the telltale rat tat tat that identifies a
pecker who wants attention or a bug meal. My favorite pecker is the Pileated,
the bird who seems to be almost as big as I am. I am sort of glad that he is
shy and doesn’t like seeds or feeding stations.
I’d like to tell you more about me and my local bird
population, but I can see from my perch at the computer that the feeders are
empty again so it’s time to ignite the feeding orgy. “By the way, there’s another
of those screwy upside-down birds that looks like a chickadee hanging around.”
Grandpa Bill
I should have known that thinking uses calories. Every nerdy,
smart person I know is skinny and wears glasses. And now that I think about it,
I haven’t seen any fat guys buying any of my books, either. Not only do the
skinny nerds think more, they have bigger brains so they use more calories when
they sit around with their brains idling. I suppose they can calculate the mass
of my snowmobiles even with their brains in first gear, whereas I need
overdrive to remember the last time I put gas in the machines. Which is why they
are broke, the repairman said the gas that I put in the machines last winter
turned to mashed potatoes and plugged up the frazzelometer, and voided the
warranty on the fuel metering ohmmeter requiring him to overhaul both machines
just to get them started. I suspect his brain is not much bigger than mine
though, because he has been calculating the cost to repair my machines for the
last two weeks.