Category Archives: Birding

Birding, Kids

Mimicry

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As winter turned to spring, the types of birds at my feeder began to change. The dark-eyed juncos and pine siskins returned to their homes for the breeding season, and brown thrashers and robins came in to take their place. Around the same time, though, a flock of starlings that live in the neighborhood also discovered the feeders.

They are pretty birds, but very hungry. They come in droves and eat everything in sight. Their long bills are not good for most seeds, so they tend to open them like a pair of chopsticks and sift through looking for unshelled sunflower seeds they can eat. It would be fine if they were careful, but they throw everything they don’t like out of the feeder and onto the ground. The squirrels and doves love this, but not me.

Yesterday my youngest child watched them at work and asked what they were and why I didn’t like them as much. I tried to think of a way to explain it so he’d understand.

“Well, you know how when you get a bowl of Chex mix you only like to eat the Chex?” I said.

“Sure. They’re the good part.”

“It’s kind of like that. The starlings like the sunflower seeds so they look for those. But you pick through the Chex mix and leave the pretzels and rye chips for your sister or me to eat. The starlings don’t care and just throw everything they don’t like on the floor”.

His eyes got big and a light bulb I didn’t mean to go off did.

“That’s a great idea. I could throw all that junk on the floor and just eat the Chex.”

I am now constantly on guard at snack time, and I like the starlings a little less than before.

Birding

Who Doesn’t Love Dolly?

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Watching animals, it’s tempting to ascribe human traits and personalities onto them. We give them our anxieties or sense of play, and when they look at us we like to think they understand. In some ways they do, but it is likely in their own way and not ours.

The other night I sat on my back porch listening to music and reading. A duet by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, “Just Someone I Used to Know”, came into the rotation and I perked up to listen. I hadn’t heard the song before and was taken by it.

At the same time a carolina wren started singing from the corner of the yard (they’re little birds, but loud). Then he was on a tree nearby, then in the bush at the corner of the porch where he waited, but didn’t sing. A cardinal joined him, hopping out onto the fence close to the house, looking around in a curious way. They didn’t stay long, and both flitted off before the end of the song.

It was probably coincidence, but I like to think that they, like me, were taken in by Dolly Parton singing about a lost love. Based on what little I know about mating patterns in songbirds, they probably know more about it than we do.

Birding, Parenting

Vindication, like Nature, Can Be Rough

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This past December my youngest child and I watched a hawk in our yard, and after I went back inside he swears he saw it swoop and eat something, but we were never sure.

This past week my daughter and I saw another (or possibly the same) red-shouldered hawk swoop from a tree onto our patio, grab a lizard, and take it back into the trees for a snack. I thought he would be excited, and maybe a little vindicated. But I wasn’t prepared for his reaction.

Me: “Hey, C! Do you know what I saw today?”

C: “No, what?”

Me: “A hawk fly down to the patio, grab a lizard, and eat it. So you probably did see something like that in December.”

C: (Horrified) “HE ATE MINI?!?”

Me: “Who’s Mini?”

C: (Still horrified) “Mini. There’s a lizard that lives on the patio and I named it Mini. The hawk ate it?”

Me: “Maybe it was a snake. I don’t really know.”

It was the best pivot I could think of in the moment. I think he got over it quickly, but I didn’t want to ask. Sometimes confirmation is overrated.