Let me tell you about Wilferd the Wren, who every year builds his nest on the corner of my mountain cabin. The nest itself is cozy inside a semi-hollow log, with a floor on the bottom and a sloping roof made from a wooden slab. There are so many sticks in it, they protrude out of the hole that is his front door. Wilferd keeps a vigil outside the nest, really a twittering expert, shaking his feathers and jumping up and down on the aspen tree that grows about six feet from his place. Sometimes, I see him flitting from treetop to treetop and singing the most joyous melodic songs. He strings the themes together as though he had been tutored by Simon and Garfunkle. I kind of wait for the guitar accompaniment but so far, nada. It is a capella.
Once, I was resting on the picnic bench right under his nest and I noticed that he was unusually agitated. He chirped an urgent, strident call. I wondered if he had swallowed a worm the wrong way, but then he dove down towards the ground, barely missing me. I thought he was suggesting that I Move, but as I followed his dive I saw that there was a tiny green snake about five inches long that was scurrying just ahead of Wilferd towards the woodpile. Wilferd was defending his nest. He knew that Colorado is a Make My Day state.
As he regained his post in the tree, I got up and decided to rest inside the house to allay any fears that he might have about my own intentions. (I read later in a wildlife book that those green snakes are an endangered species in Colorado, and I know why. Too many of them have been in the wrong place -- close to a wren's nest -- and the wrong time -- when they are brooding -- to survive.)
There are other twitterers outside of my cabin. The mocking bird, Pasquale (I call him that because he is a tenor, and I can just see him in his clown's suit, pulling aside the curtain, and belting out, tears streaming down his cheeks, to the enthralled audience, that Laugh, Clown, Laugh song from Pagliacci.) (This was before television, kids, you may have to ask somebody to explain it to you.) Pasquale the mockingbird is looking for a mate. He hangs out in the tallest trees, on the tallest branch, or on the 50-foot-in-the-air light post. He tells the world his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations. He must be a young bird because he is not very big, and he sang all spring last year but never in the moonlight, which means that he never found a mate, and that is why his songs are so heartrending. (They stop singing when they find a partner, just like us humans.) Pasquale, we know the feeling. We hope you don't die of old age before you get lucky. Next year you'll be bigger. You'll have a better repertory. We are all rooting for you.
Frank and Jesse were a little different. When we first moved to Colorado, I wondered what kind of birds those fancy black and white ones were with the long tail feathers. I thought they might be called cop car birds, but I was informed that they were "Oklahoma pheasants," or magpies. The kid from the ranch next door told me that they were not really welcomed in the bird world: they stole babies from other birds' nests and used the housing for themselves, for example. I had to have a pair. I paid him a dollar to steal two fledglings for me, and he delivered them the next day. (I am sure he told his momma that the crazy lady from Texas wanted them.) Now I had two bandit birds and I didn't know what to feed them. I scrambled an egg and poked it into their beaks, making twittering noises myself, and sure enough, they ate it. We got along pretty well together, me digging worms from the garden and they making themselves at home in my living room for about two weeks until they got to the point that better thinking convinced me to turn them out, and I did. For a while, they would both come to the bedroom window and squawk at me, and I would squawk back at them. But after a while, they went on their scandalous ways and never came back like the teenagers they were.
Now, when I see a magpie flying over, I call out, "Is that you, Frank? Jesse?" But they keep on flying. After all, it was 35 years ago. It was a fun experience, once done, never repeated.
This year, I thought it would be cool, a great adjunct to the back yard, to start feeding the finches. Last year, I saw a few of them around the regular bird feeder, and I thought, Oh boy! Let's attract more of the darling little creatures.
The finch feeder I was able to obtain at the local hardware store is a sock about nine inches long made of small mesh. The food, thistle seeds, is poured into the sock and voila! it is armed and ready. I suspended it from the apricot tree, and sure enough, it wasn't long before several female finches appeared, and then some redheaded males, and one bird with a gold head. Bingo!
Sometimes, there are three to five little birds hanging upside down and sideways on that sock, working away, chowing down. Just some casual twittering: "Cheap. Cheap. Cheap-cheap." (A commentary on the sock? Everyone's a critic.) They are mostly friendly to each other, sharing the bounty selflessly, although yesterday I saw one female chase off a male. Mostly, the eaters just move over to make room for newcomers. Such grace. Such atmosphere. Such harmony, not often seen in nature.
Molly chases them off sometimes, but they come back, secure in the knowledge that dogs can't fly. I guess it is worth the $30 a month to have such a sideshow directly outside the kitchen window.
Once, I was resting on the picnic bench right under his nest and I noticed that he was unusually agitated. He chirped an urgent, strident call. I wondered if he had swallowed a worm the wrong way, but then he dove down towards the ground, barely missing me. I thought he was suggesting that I Move, but as I followed his dive I saw that there was a tiny green snake about five inches long that was scurrying just ahead of Wilferd towards the woodpile. Wilferd was defending his nest. He knew that Colorado is a Make My Day state.
As he regained his post in the tree, I got up and decided to rest inside the house to allay any fears that he might have about my own intentions. (I read later in a wildlife book that those green snakes are an endangered species in Colorado, and I know why. Too many of them have been in the wrong place -- close to a wren's nest -- and the wrong time -- when they are brooding -- to survive.)
There are other twitterers outside of my cabin. The mocking bird, Pasquale (I call him that because he is a tenor, and I can just see him in his clown's suit, pulling aside the curtain, and belting out, tears streaming down his cheeks, to the enthralled audience, that Laugh, Clown, Laugh song from Pagliacci.) (This was before television, kids, you may have to ask somebody to explain it to you.) Pasquale the mockingbird is looking for a mate. He hangs out in the tallest trees, on the tallest branch, or on the 50-foot-in-the-air light post. He tells the world his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations. He must be a young bird because he is not very big, and he sang all spring last year but never in the moonlight, which means that he never found a mate, and that is why his songs are so heartrending. (They stop singing when they find a partner, just like us humans.) Pasquale, we know the feeling. We hope you don't die of old age before you get lucky. Next year you'll be bigger. You'll have a better repertory. We are all rooting for you.
Frank and Jesse were a little different. When we first moved to Colorado, I wondered what kind of birds those fancy black and white ones were with the long tail feathers. I thought they might be called cop car birds, but I was informed that they were "Oklahoma pheasants," or magpies. The kid from the ranch next door told me that they were not really welcomed in the bird world: they stole babies from other birds' nests and used the housing for themselves, for example. I had to have a pair. I paid him a dollar to steal two fledglings for me, and he delivered them the next day. (I am sure he told his momma that the crazy lady from Texas wanted them.) Now I had two bandit birds and I didn't know what to feed them. I scrambled an egg and poked it into their beaks, making twittering noises myself, and sure enough, they ate it. We got along pretty well together, me digging worms from the garden and they making themselves at home in my living room for about two weeks until they got to the point that better thinking convinced me to turn them out, and I did. For a while, they would both come to the bedroom window and squawk at me, and I would squawk back at them. But after a while, they went on their scandalous ways and never came back like the teenagers they were.
Now, when I see a magpie flying over, I call out, "Is that you, Frank? Jesse?" But they keep on flying. After all, it was 35 years ago. It was a fun experience, once done, never repeated.
This year, I thought it would be cool, a great adjunct to the back yard, to start feeding the finches. Last year, I saw a few of them around the regular bird feeder, and I thought, Oh boy! Let's attract more of the darling little creatures.
The finch feeder I was able to obtain at the local hardware store is a sock about nine inches long made of small mesh. The food, thistle seeds, is poured into the sock and voila! it is armed and ready. I suspended it from the apricot tree, and sure enough, it wasn't long before several female finches appeared, and then some redheaded males, and one bird with a gold head. Bingo!
Sometimes, there are three to five little birds hanging upside down and sideways on that sock, working away, chowing down. Just some casual twittering: "Cheap. Cheap. Cheap-cheap." (A commentary on the sock? Everyone's a critic.) They are mostly friendly to each other, sharing the bounty selflessly, although yesterday I saw one female chase off a male. Mostly, the eaters just move over to make room for newcomers. Such grace. Such atmosphere. Such harmony, not often seen in nature.
Molly chases them off sometimes, but they come back, secure in the knowledge that dogs can't fly. I guess it is worth the $30 a month to have such a sideshow directly outside the kitchen window.
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