COVID Senior Lockdown, Day 44

We had a new bird in the yard today! We get a lot of sparrows, like everybody, but one caught Mrs. F’s eye from the kitchen window and she called me over. Using my birding binoculars to zoom in on the target that must have been, gee, at least twelve feet away, I spied a sparrowish creature with a grey breast and striking black and white stripes atop his head. A quick glance into my bird bible identified him as a White Crested Sparrow. Welcome, little buddy.

We do well here in Gunpowder World with woodpeckers. Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers are regular visitors to the pines out front, as are woodpecker relatives like the Flicker and even the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker. Yes, they really exist outside humorous scenes about nerdy birdwatchers. We’ve even had sightings of the granddaddy of Eastern woodpeckers, the Pileated Woodpecker. Big sons of guns, those boys. One of our most stalwart annual visitors is the Red-Bellied Woodpecker, whose belly isn’t really red but whose head boasts a brilliant shock of neon orange. They’ll do everything from peck at the maple in the back to walk up on the deck looking for leftover squirrel peanuts. Last spring, we noticed one following a very precise pattern, over and over again. He zipped down from the elm tree above the shed, lit on the sunflower-seed feeder for a second, took one, zoomed back to the same spot in the tree and then did something we couldn’t figure out. Hmmm. The birding glasses revealed a couple of smaller heads in the crook of a limb, waiting anxiously for dad to bring another mouthful. That was charming. He was doing it again yesterday, same spot in the tree, which I guess now is the old family homestead. Looks like another batch of pretty birds for us to enjoy this spring.

Speaking of feeding things, I have to give the missus a lot of credit for the love she shows all God’s creatures around here. Well, the winged and four-legged ones mostly. Whole nuts for the squirrels and blue jays, crushed nuts for the Carolina wrens, seed dispensed at exactly the same location on the driveway every morning (under a bough of trees, safe from hawks) for the cardinals, sparrows, mockingbirds, and whatever else is around. Yours truly takes care of the hanging feeders out back, but not nearly with the dedication Mrs. F ladles onto her friends. It’s to the point that, on the rare occasion that she’s late or hasn’t noticed a need, a bright red cardinal will sit on a branch at exactly eye level to the kitchen window and bark at her, with direct piecing eye contact. Lady! Over here! I’ve joked that with her experience with the animals as well as with our two kids, she could open Mrs. F’s Diner and be the Official Short-Order Cook. Heck, no, she demurs. “I don’t mind making special food for those I love, but I don’t think I’d have the patience with strangers.”

Guest: Lady, over here! I wanted extra cheese on this burger.
Mrs. F: Extra cheese? You want extra cheese? Do I know you? Do I love you? Are you a blood relative? Do you have feathers? Then, no, you can’t have extra cheese!! Here, I found a couple peanuts in my apron. Make do.

She’s the best.