Tag: Birds

Feathery Neighbours

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 9 Comments
Image: marliesplatvoet — Pixabay
Painstakingly
I clean out the mess
of sticks and misc debris
the tenants left behind.
Antisocial creatures these
wrens, making their point
clear: they tolerate no
nosy nearby neighbours.

If you know about wrens, you’ll know they have a bad habit of stuffing every potential dwelling in the vicinity full of twigs so no other birds can nest near them. I try to get my wren houses all cleaned out before they return in spring so they’ll have a choice of housing. Some boxes are made to open, but if they don’t it can be quite a job to pull a bunch of debris from the small holes.

Our yard seems to be full of wrens now – probably half a dozen pairs – singing their little hearts out while their eggs incubate. Trouble is, we hear them loud and clear but we rarely see them. Once the chicks burst out of their shells, the parent birds will be run ragged trying to keep up with little appetites.

I hear constant starving wail now because some birds have discovered our bathroom fan vent. Some years back the cover on the outside of this vent pipe fell off. Half a dozen years back a tree swallow pair discovered the 2″ pipe and cavity inside. They liked the spot with its handy “entry” and raised two batches of chicks. It was interesting hearing them raise their families, but in fall we got up on a ladder and plugged the hole.

After some years of peace and no swallows coming anymore, I took the tinfoil out. Big mistake. Blackbirds (or starlings?) found the opening this spring and cheeped, “Hey! Wouldn’t this make a good nest?”

I tried to discourage them when I heard scrabbling in the vent area coming from the wall beside the built-in vanity. I got up and stuffed a tinfoil ball – shaped like a 2 x 4-inch “potato”– into the pipe. To be double sure they’d stay out, I stuffed a tinfoil sheet inside the wall, on top of this ball.

Well, they weren’t giving up. The next afternoon I saw the tinfoil sheet, relatively intact, lying on the ground not far from the vent opening. Looking around more, I found that the birds had somehow worked that ball of tinfoil out of the pipe and carried it clear across the yard to the barb-wire fence. Was one of the birds still inside when I stuffed in the tinfoil, or however did they manage to pull it out?

Anyway, rather than risk a dead bird or a nest of rotting eggs perfuming our bathroom, we’ve left them. Now we have this chorus of cheeps whenever mom or dad returns with some lunch. But come fall…

May Journal Page

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

Hello everyone! Yes, I’m still alive and well, though I haven’t been near the computer very much lately.

Spring – or summer? – is finally here. After our last snow the thermometer rose steadily and we’ve needed our air conditioner. Smoke from northern fires has made the air hazy for a week. The birds have returned; the trees around us are noisy from morn til night. No rain for weeks, just a bit last night, so I’ve been filling water basins on the lawn for the birds again. Chokecherries and lilacs are blooming and I should be doing something about my planters and flowerbeds.

My courage has been low these last two weeks. So much to do — it feels like I’ve five mountains that should be moved right shortly and have only a trowel to work with. Where to start? (Is this a sign of OCD?) Sewing projects waiting, flowerbeds to work, writing & editing needing done plus a heap of housework. Then I’d like to paint & draw again.

The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is INDEFATIGABLE –and I’m not. 🙂

I can’t blame it on my health woes because the medication I’m taking has done wonders in bringing my blood counts back toward normal. Something to be very thankful for. I’d like to be upbeat but think of all the work that need doing and wish I had more energy to tackle it. Sometimes I do have good days; it’s not all bad.

At least I’m getting lots of fresh air these days, having become the peace-keeping force in our yard. A stray cat has wandered in – or someone has left it off. Anyone who thinks they can drop an unwanted cat off at some town or farm and it will cheerfully blend in with the locals needs a sharp lesson on cat behavior. Predators grab the weaker ones. The stronger ones have to fight for every bit of food and shelter they find.

Our Angus likes being outside, and he’s very territorial. He won’t tolerate this stray in our yard – and the stray won’t run from a fight. He isn’t going to let Angus boss him around. When the two meet, it’s claws and flying fur. So I’ve been keeping an eye on Angus when he’s outside and bringing him in the house should the other appear. Or I swoop in at the first sign of aggression, sometimes having to separate the two combatants. Not an easy task!

I have accomplished a few goals. Over the past two months I did get a new dress pattern worked out, a prototype for every day and then a Sunday dress made. I dug up part of my flowerbed yesterday. Saturday I did some decluttering.

I’m a hoarder – may as well confess. In the course of looking for our finch feeder I found a box containing old greeting cards and other paper keepsakes. Get-well cards from 1980 when I had my cancer surgery; cards from my 40th birthday party, from friends back in Ontario. My grands can deal with them someday. 🙂

Are you sentimental? Do you have old cards and diaries like these squirreled away? Or are you a minimalist?

Delights & Northern Lights

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments
Image by Jacques Barbary — Pixabay

Here’s a list of fifteen more delights in my little world:

– the rosy glow of dawn

– little dust devils whirling and twirling across an open field, or twisting through the longer grasses on a roadside

– watching storm clouds churning (One of the most fantastic sights ever was a huge super-cell in the sky west of us!)

– seeing much-needed steady rain soaking into a thirsty land

– sundogs and rainbows

– northern lights *

– watching a blizzard (from indoors, where I’m snug and warm )

– a twenty acre field covered with snow geese

– watching hundreds of sandhill cranes foraging in the field across the road

– seeing a flock of swans landing in the slough just NW of our acreage

– fields of canola in bloom, a gold carpet stretching out a mile or more

– the delightful scent of wild roses

– red-to-burgundy autumn leaves on our Amur maple

– the autumn brilliance of a hardwood forest

– poems about all these things

* An amazing sight:
Several months ago I woke at 5 am – like, wide awake. (Must have been a nudge from God. He had something he wanted to show me. 🙂 ) I got up and decided to look out the window right beside my bed, which faces to the north. So I opened the curtains a bit – and saw some amazing northern lights rippling across the sky.

I’d watched for a few minutes when my husband woke up. “What are you seeing out there?”

“Northern lights. Really colourful ones, wavering across the sky.”

So he got up to watch. For awhile they continued streaming, then something incredible started to happen: all across the northern sky, wide puffs of light started shooting up from the earth into the heavens. Like half a dozen airport beacons in different spots, sweeping across the sky, yet each sending their beams straight upward. Here a puff would shoot up and disappear, then more to the west another puff shot up, then maybe in the middle of our view. Rapidly, steadily, the balls of light rose and disappeared into the stars. We watched for about ten minutes as these rising clouds of light continued bursting upwards.

Words can hardly describe the magnificence! I doubt I’ll ever see a phenomenon like that again. If it hadn’t been so early, I’d have sent a text around telling other ladies to get up and see this. Later, texting about it on our church sisters’ chat, I learned that only one other sister in our congregation was up to see it. The others were all disappointed to miss the sight.

Fifteen Delights

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

Happy May 1st everyone!

I wrote in yesterday’s post that I was going to follow the example of Writing from the heart with Brian and list the many things I enjoy. I hesitate to use the word love. Years ago I heard about a young woman who was enthusing about loving some thing when an elderly lady encouraged her to “Love something that can love you back.” That thought has stuck with me.

So here are fifteen outdoor things that are a delight to my heart. If you are an avid fan of nature like me, many of these things will delight you, too. 🙂

Pixabay

– The first dandelions brightening the lawn, heralding spring. (But only the first!)

– Hearing the winnowing of a nighthawk when on an evening walk

– A wren in a nearby tree singing his merry song over and over

– The gentle coo coo of a mourning dove in the morning as it bobs along picking at seeds

“For, lo, the winter is past…the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle(dove) is heard in our land…” Eccl 2:11-12

– Seeing rhubarb nubs coming up and remembering Jane Kenyon’s “rhubarb leaf, like a mad red brain, thinks its way up through loam.”

– Seeing wrens moving into the birdhouses I’ve set up for them

such a wee bird
sir wren – yet how fiercely
you scold that cat

– Discovering a toad in my flowerbed. I actually like the little guys and I know they’re helpful.

embarrassed by light
they wait for darkness
good works in secret

– The setting sun tinting the clouds pin and mauve

– Colorful butterflies flitting around, lighting on blooms and folding their wings.

– The satiny softness of tulip petals

– Hummingbirds zipping around our feeders

– Humming bird moths nectaring among the flowers at night

— Seeing the birds taking baths in the water basins I’ve set out for them

– Vees of Canada geese winging their way northwards

– When the Youth group sings for the seniors at the Villa on summer evenings, with the windows open, hearing the robins singing along
(Some may say this is pure coincidence, but when the youth – who sing acappella – blend their voices in a hymn, the nearby robins do seem to join in, full voice.)

A Sermon of Sparrows

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

I peek out my door
on Sunday morning
and a choir of sparrows
revs up their song.

Spying an open door,
the little preachers begin.
A sermon of sparrows:
“Remember the needy!”

I reprove them at times
for the sin of gluttony–
all those uneaten seeds!
Beggars mustn’t waste.

But they never repent –
always picking the best
and leaving the rest
for lesser creatures.