Bird Crazy
I love birds, don’t you?
Back in Western New York, I live on five wooded acres, complete with a creek that ran all the way to the Genesee River. It was a gateway for nature, and my world was filled with birds. I liked to sit on my back deck and watch them fishing for their supper in the creek: Blue Herons, Kingfishers, even an occasional owl. I bought a bird book to help me identify some of the gorgeous, colorful birds I was seeing. I put up nest boxes and had the joy of watching dozens of clutches of bluebirds hatch and fledge.
When I moved out of state and bought a little cottage in town, I really missed my birds. I put up feeders and filled them with good quality seed. I soon had cardinals and finches and bluejays, but how I missed the cedar waxwings and the indigo buntings and the bluebirds.
After a couple of years I started to really notice the robins building nests in my apple tree. I noticed the wrens with their delightful, trilling songs. I noticed the graceful flights of tree swallows as they danced through the sky as if with fairy wings. I bought a handmade birdhouse at a flee market and planted a little garden spot.
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To my utter amazement, it attracted a blue bird!
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Unfortunately, she abandoned it after the first hard rain, so I knew my flee market find must have structural issues! Last week I bought a cute bluebird house. I took down the flee market bird house and put up the new one.
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We had an unexpected April snowfall in the night, and this morning I looked out to see that this little tree swallow had staked a claim! Not a bluebird, but still, I hope she’ll stay. I’m learning to appreciate even the common, everyday birds, and I’m looking forward to a good season of birding, no matter what kind of bird babies they are!
