A few weeks ago I bought a birdfeeder. The feeder hangs just outside the window where I write. I just had this strong desire to see the birds. I also liked the idea of feeding them through out the winter. I came home with the feeder filled it with seed and hung it up and then waited. It did not take long for the birds to find my feeder, maybe a couple of days, it was pretty amazing. Obviously with birds you cannot put an ad in the paper or hang up a sign in the front yard that says “bird feeder in the rear”. You just have to wait for birds to figure it out. According to a website I found they do not have a keen sense of smell. It is usually that they are scoping out the neighborhood for food regularly and when they see something that looks like a feeder they check it out. As the feeder draws in the birds it gets more attention and word spreads through out the bird world that there is food near by. We get a 5 star rating by word of beak.
It has been well over 10 years since we were foster parents for a baby Blue Jay. We found it in our garage one summer day. At first we were not sure what to do, but Mark did some investigating into bird rescue and took on raising this bird. We named the bird “Fluffy” and proceeded to bring him up as one of our own.
The crazy thing is that we took Fluffy camping with us. Not just once either, we took him several times. At the time we had a cardboard cat carrier with holes in it that were small enough so Fluffy would not get out, so we would pop him in there and off we would go. We would dig up worms for Fluffy and feed him just like he was our pet. As Fluffy got older we let him have more freedom and he would fly off and then come back for food. We found out later that Fluffy was roaming the neighborhood visiting people, thinking that everyone was friendly like us. Fluffy would land on one neighbor as she was gardening and she would think the bird had gone mad and she would run into her house. Fluffy would also go and sit on neighbors decks as they sat eating dinner or relaxing. Fluffy was also a lover of jewelry, he would land on us as we sat outside and peck at our necklaces or earrings; Mark thought it might be because the jewelry was shiny, but the girls and I got a big kick out of it.
I am not sure what brought Fluffy into our lives, but I do know it has made for some great stories and a lot of laughs. Eventually, Fluffy flew off and joined his other blue jay friends. From time to time as we sit outside in the summer, we will wonder at the blue jays in the yard. Could one of them be Fluffy? Maybe even a Fluffy junior? Who knows, maybe this birdfeeder will bring another bird friend into our lives this summer. The feeder seems to be a big hit with the local birds, so we will just have to wait and see what happens. For now, I am happy to watch through the window and see nature in action.
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