Tag: Birds

Appealing

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 20 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is APPEALING

Have you heard that new singer, McLeod?
He’s able to draw quite a crowd
with his lyrics appealing
infused with such feeling
He soon has his audience wowed.

And on a quite different vein, in her last letter my penpal from England feels sympathy for the birds at their feeder when she writes: “…by the end of January the UK will be affected by an icy blast from Siberia, which will send our temperatures plummeting to -5̊ C.”

I watch our local birds fluttering around the feeder this morning – English sparrows, I might add – all puffed up, bravely facing our chilly -33̊C. However, our predicted high today is a more appealing -24. I guess our sparrows have had over a century and many generations to adapt to our climate, though.

The Dark Creatures

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 10 Comments

Dark, Fluffy, and Very Playful

We seem to be dealing with our share of unique black creatures these days. Two weeks ago we found this black-and-white fluffy stray kitten on our doorstep. Bob had him to the vet on Saturday and he got his first shots. Lori, the vet, said Tuffy’s the most uniquely colored kitten she’s ever seen – and all the girls at the clinic thought he was adorable. 🙂 Lori’s never seen a cat with two-toned fur like his before. Tuffy’s back and leg fur is made up of black and white strands intermixxed, which gives him that hoar-frosted look. And his mostly-white ruff is so long it’s almost a cape around his neck.

The Odd Bird in the Flock

I have mentioned different times that we’re putting out bird seed and feeding a flock of sparrows that hang around – mostly in our Caraganas or in the woods on the east side of our trailer. A few different times I’ve noticed a rather large sparrow in the flock and one day I realized it wasn’t a sparrow at all. Not with a long tail like that. A closer look revealed that it was a red-wing blackbird. I don’t know why this bird decided to pass the winter hanging out with a flock of sparrows here on the chilly prairie. Was he injured or too weak to fly south with his own kin?

I’ve been keeping an eye out for him this week and today, using my binoculars, I was able to get a good look at this misfit. I have never in my life seen a blackbird quite like this one. He’s black for the most part, a black beak, too. But his upper back is kind of mottled or streaked with grey – which blackbirds never are. He has the curved wing markings of a red-wing, but they are white, or light grey. Perhaps this is the red-wing’s winter coloring, but we never see them in winter, so how can we know?

He hangs out with the stubby little English sparrows most of the time but appears to consider himself above them because he shoos them off if they get too much in his way. And he never comes to the feeder pole – at least I’ve never seen him at the feeder or on the ground below. Maybe when the weather gets colder he will? My first thought was that he won’t last; surely a blackbird can’t survive our winters. However, if the sparrows can survive, why shouldn’t he, too? Time will tell.

My Gobbling Google

I’ve had some issues with my cell phone lately – the G-mail has been gobbling up my plan’s bytes like teen boys at an eat-all-you-can buffet — and we can’t figure out why. One thing I have tried: I changed my settings and cancelled notifications so I’m not getting so many incoming e-mails with photos from other bloggers. I can rather check my Reader for new posts. I’ll see if this will make any difference this month. So if you’re inclined to post a lot of photos and you aren’t hearing as much from me, it’s because I’m not getting all your notifications right now.

One last thought — but quite important: I’d like to give a warm welcome to all my new followers. I’m not sure where everyone is finding my blog, but I see the numbers going up. 🙂 You’re all welcome to browse in the archives, read and comment on posts.

Wishing everyone a “Happy Hump Day” – as another blogger calls Wednesday, since it’s the middle of the week.

The Hawk At Dawn

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments 
In the light of dawn his profile
 adorns the south route sign
 waiting for day to reveal
 the carnage of speed.
 Then he feasts,
 crisscrossing the highway
 sampling the hapless menu.

 Does he ever rise into the sky
 to dip in the currents heavens?
 Or has this young hawk bartered
 his soul for this putrid feast?
 Sold his soaring and searching,
 abandoning lofty rights
 for the easy dead and the dying?

 Like those human birds of prey
 flush with the takings of greed,
 those shadows that lurk in byways
 to prey on suffering souls.

Heather’s choice for the Ragtag Daily Prompt today: FLUSH
Fandango’s One-word Challenge: PUTRID

Summer Fun Verses

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 8 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is SUMMER FUN

Image: Jill wellington — Pixabay

Well, I’m looking out on a white world and watching more snow come down, so I’ll have to draw from memory’s pages — or scribblings. On Sunday evening I opened a tub that’s been stored away for awhile. This is my “finish and polish someday” tub. I dug through various scribblings and pulled out a number of half-baked poems to work on and post later. I’ve decided to type everything onto computer files ASAP, just to get rid of the paper clutter, and work on them as I have time.

Here are a few micro-poems that fit the SUMMER FUN category:

My best effort
to join the wren
in joyful melody;
sadly my tune
just hasn’t the wings!

morning light
Venus and a sparrow
share the bird bath

moth floating
in the bird bath
no life jacket

in this wind
even the young lord’s kite
bows

Emergency

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning: EMERGE
The Word of the Day Challenge: PROVOKE

We had an emergency of sorts this morning that led Bob to emerge from the warmth of our home and enter the world of white and cold.

I noticed yesterday afternoon that our bird feeder was almost empty, but Bob had a supper appointment and didn’t get home until late — and dark. So the bird seed was depleted this morning. The sparrows were clustering hopefully but getting nothing; some of them took to hovering in the caragana hedge a few yards from the living room window. From this vantage they can peer in and provoke guilt in their human suppliers.

Alas! The humans were slow in getting around, being occupied with computers and such. The birds’ urgent need led them to try Plan B: a number of them came and perched on the railing right outside the front door. They were making their needs as clear as cheepy little birds can. I took up their cause and a few minutes later Bob went out with a bag of feed and corrected the problem. As soon as he disappeared around the corner of the house, the cry went forth and sparrows swarmed the feeder.

I think their policy is: Go out into the highways and by-ways and tell all your friends there’s a feast ready to enjoy beside the mobile home. Sometimes I can scarcely believe how many sparrows there are on the feeder and on the ground nearby. A couple of magpies intercepted the call; they’ve showed up to try and grab a few sunflower seeds. Our feeder is awkward for them, but hey! Free food’s worth a few contortions.

Image: GLady — Pixabay

“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth.”

Psalm 121: 1-2

Our sparrows know they can look to us when they have a need — and they have their own small way of making their needs known. Likewise we turn to the Lord for our help, knowing how He’s has taken care of us thus far in life. Though we haven’t been able to attend church services much since March, still we’ve been able to listen to some very inspiring messages — including several yesterday — thanks to modern technology.

Poetic Reblogs

~ Christine Goodnough ~ Leave a comment

Grey doves flutter
onto rain-soaked sidewalk
to find the man who sits,
rain or shine, on a bench
all alone but for his
pocketful of seeds.
Friends never forget.

One time as we walked through a park in the city we observed a man sitting on a bench. At first it looked like a scene from “The Birds” and he was being attacked by a dozen pigeons. But we could see as we got closer he was feeding them from his pockets.
His appearance was rather seedy as well; one could easily take him for a social outcast. I had to wonder if maybe the birds were his best friends. Seems they found no fault in him.