I have always been fond of nature. I like plants and animals. I don't know all that much about them, considering my education. I can't identify most of the trees around me, or any of the shrubs and other plants. I see squirrels and birds, but I can't name the birds, most of them. I enjoy watching them, though.
Liz wanted a bird feeder. I don't know what inspired her to think about that, but she ordered one for Christmas, I think. It came just before Christmas, and was under the tree among the presents, duly wrapped and labeled. She opened it on Christmas morning. It is in the shape of a house, and made of cedar wood and glass. One side of the roof swings up on hinges to allow the inside to be filled with bird seed. The seed is accessible along the bottom of the glass walls. There are rails along the bottom for the birds to perch on as they eat.
I hung it on a branch of our odd cherry tree using a chain and S hooks, looping a bigger chain through the chain over the top of the house. I did this in the late afternoon last Sunday. Monday morning, birds arrived. There were several kinds, including a chickadee, house finches, blue jays, and a cardinal. I don't know what kinds the others were.
Later, squirrels showed up. The seed in the house was sunflower seed, which squirrels like. We had at least three squirrels taking seed from the bird feeder. It was kind of fun to watch them climb down the chain to the house. The squirrels stayed longer than the birds did.
When she got home from work, Liz watched for a while, and decided the squirrels were hogging (not squirrelling) the bird seed. She wanted to make a change. She wanted to feed birds.
She ordered another bird feeder, one that claimed to be squirrel proof. I moved the cedar house bird feeder to another branch, and hung the new bird feeder where I had the first one. This one has a spring that is not strong enough to hold up a squirrel, so when a squirrel gets on the feeder, the barrel slides down, covering the holes that give access to the seed inside. Most birds are smaller, and will not compress the spring, and so will have access to the seed.
One thing caught our eye as Liz opened the package with the new bird feeder. She had looked for a bird feeder that claimed to be "squirrel proof". It seems to live up to its billing. But on the box we saw a surprising picture. Someone decided it would be a good idea to draw a squirrel. Crying. Yes, a large, blue tear drop was on the squirrel's cheek. Why? Are we supposed to feel better about ourselves because we are making squirrels sad? Sure, this feeder is designed for people who prefer to feed birds rather than squirrels. But who is attracted by an image of a squirrel suffering? I was tempted to demand we send the thing back with a nasty note about cold heartedness.
I got over it. I just laughed briefly at the oddity, and unfeeling nature of the picture, and went on with the project.
It only took a few minutes before birds arrived to sample our new feeder. It was a similar assortment of birds to the first time. We found that because I had hung the bird feeder with thin nylon rope, it would spin around when birds landed on it. That didn't seem to bother the birds at all. There was a lot of flitting about between the feeder and the branches of the tree or the ground. Blue jays came by, but I never saw one on the feeder. I don't know if they are heavy enough to compress the spring.
After a while, squirrels came again. First, one scampered along the branch where the bird feeder hung, and looked down at it, but then left. After another minute or so, it found the cedar house, and started on the sunflower seeds there. Then another squirrel came. Sometime later, one of the squirrels tried to climb down the nylon rope to the new bird feeder, but just as it reached the top of the feeder, it climbed back up. Later, a squirrel made a more concerted attempt at getting to the new feeder. It climbed all the way down onto the barrel. The spring compressed. The squirrel spent a couple of minutes feeling and sniffing around the barrel, looking for a way to get to the seeds. It did not succeed. It soon gave up, and went over to the cedar house.
In the early afternoon, a package was delivered to our steps. Liz had bought a different mix of seeds for feeding wildlife. This seems to include cracked corn among the seeds. She said it had things birds, squirrels, and chipmunks like. I think she put some in the top of the cedar house bird feeder, which we acknowledge as a bird and squirrel feeder. Then she scattered some on the ground. In less than half an hour, we had five squirrels in blue yard, eating the seeds on the ground and in the tree. We also had two blue jays eating seeds on the ground. At least once, a squirrel chased off a blue jay. The blue jays mostly kept some distance from the squirrels, and everyone seemed to get along.
It is a pleasure to watch these animals taking our seeds. I don't know about the ecology of feeding birds and small animals in the suburbs, and whether it is good for the environment or the community. But I enjoy it, already. And I have learned the names of two kinds of birds this week. Just having the bird feeder makes me feel like we have a stronger connection to nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment