“The fall of a sparrow,” so I’ve heard, does not go unnoticed. Or in this case, the “smooshing of a sparrow” in the grille of a Toyota. Continue reading “Sidewalk Nature: Fall of a Sparrow”
Sidewalk Nature: Fall of a Sparrow
Tag: birds
Cache Machine (seed stash)
A tree-height Amur honeysuckle bush fell over in the last big snow, and while hacking at the trunk yesterday, I remembered two things: Continue reading “Cache Machine (seed stash)”
Stealing Christmas Trees
Once you start stealing Christmas trees, you may not want to stop. I’ve got three right now. The best was the dried cedar by the curb a block over. Izzy hauled it home for me, dragging it behind like a giant peacock tail.
Discarded evergreens make great temporary brush piles for winter birds: they give cover to species loathe to fly up to a birdfeeder. Ground-feeders feed on the ground. Two examples: the visiting White-throated Sparrows and the year-round Mourning Doves. Asking a White-throated Sparrow to spend all day on a tube feeder four feet off the ground is like asking me to go sit at the bar at Applebee’s. It’s not going to happen. Continue reading “Stealing Christmas Trees”
Chickadee Nest, 3/23/13
Someone has finally begun to move in to Izzy’s bluebird house. It stayed vacant all last year.
Izzy made the house in spring, when we chanced upon a program at Warner Park Nature Center. He trailed a group of children headed toward what turned out to be a planned project near the pond. A volunteer had cut cedar pickets into bluebird house panels, photocopied the plans, and even provided rebar and galvanized pipe to make a pole. The kids took turns with too few hammers, and Izzy managed to cobble together a house. The teen who loaned his hammer had quite a cold: at one point the reappearing snot rope stretched to a couple of feet before he snuffed it back in. I worried we were borrowing more than just his hammer. Continue reading “Chickadee Nest, 3/23/13”
