on the day i was up at mary’s house washing the infamous poo sheets, i noticed an abundance of goldfinches on her clothes line. the reason for this, she explained, was the pair of feeders hanging at either end of the line-- finch feeders, full of thistle seed that can be bought at your average hardware store by the bag full. i had already noted at the independence day bash that the hummingbirds around the haley hills seem to be unusually bold. butch has feeders hanging all around his spectacular wrap around porch, and these little hovercrafts came up for sips with a crowd of people standing barely two feet away.
when we moved into the holler, i found, amongst other objects abandoned in the cabinets, a hummy feeder that had seen better days. as a testament to my miserly nature, i spent twenty minutes scrubbing black gunk off the red plastic with a soapy tooth brush rather than go buy a feeder for probably about seven buck. i filled it with sugar water, but lacked the red food coloring that attracts the hummies most strongly. for the first few days, the feeder was a failure. but on the next trip to town, i bought a finch feeder (yellow for goldfinch luck), some thistle seed, and some red food dye and returned home to see if i could stir any birds from the woods across the road. within the week i had two hummies, and one goldfinch on my clothes line. the hummies are quite brave. they hover at the feeder a few feet above "catface's" head as though daring her, although i think they’d have to land on her head for her pulse even to go above flat line.
along the hedge line there is a bird apartment that my grandfather used to call a marten house. i don’t know if this is because it is supposed to house martens, or was invented by martin short, or even what a marten looks like, but our particular house seems to be home mainly to a flock of swallows and one spectacular royal shaded eastern bluebird. add to that the two fat mourning doves that sit loving each other on the far clothesline post, and i no longer mind washing the dishes because of the view from the window above the sink.
the drive into town is a bird watcher’s boulevard. mark haley is a tree lined road... well, more of a one lane chip'n'sealed goat track, but overhung with lush green forest in the summer. it is fairly common to see three bluebirds, a cardinal, a goldfinch, some suicidal rabbits (after summer breeding season is over and they feel the need to thin their numbers) and a chipmunk or two on the way into town, and then again on the way back.
perhaps my favorite of all “my” birds, as i have come to think of them, are the common sparrows. a mother sparrow has built a nest on one of the track lights under our porch roof, and i pouted at joe so he didn’t knock it down. there were four little eggs in it up until a couple of weeks ago when we noticed momma and dadda bird flying back and forth with bugs for dinner. now from our bedroom window we can see four little heads with open beaks sticking out, heads covered in gray feathers like little punk rockers waiting for fame. or maybe just waiting for some nice, tasty regurgitated worm.
joe has hung two little birdhouses from the porch roof edge as well. on the bottom of each is the inscription “stolen from ed zunic on” and then a date. ed was a dear friend of joe’s from his pennsylvania hunting lodge days who preceded us to heaven a little over two years ago. i think it a fitting tribute to see his birdhouses hanging outside our windows. i have seen at least one little sparrow wrestling twigs through one round doorway, so i know they are being lived in now. hopefully there will be some babies for my little songbird in her white house next year.
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