“There’s a bluebird on our windowsill, there’s a rainbow in the sky.”
That is a remnant of a song I learnt in grade school long, long years ago. But it would only be a giant fib if I suggested it was true today. We have not had rain in weeks and, consequently, no rainbow – it has been dry, dry and drier.
But, this past week, as I sat on our front porch sipping coffee and devouring a couple of poached eggs on toast for my early morning breakfast, a male bluebird, in his bright blue dress suit, sat on the lower limb of our newly planted maple.
Meanwhile, his more subtly dressed mate plunked herself down on the grass less than ten feet from where I was sitting. She was obviously searching for bugs to feed her hungry young, and he was supposedly standing on guard.
She was having quite a success as she gobbled up bug after bug from along our well-watered flower garden’s edge. Then suddenly there was a flurry of feathers and scrambling around her was not one, not two, but seven speckle-breasted young. I have on rare occasion found seven eggs in a bluebird’s nest and, on occasion, the bird banders of the area have reported an equal number, but never seven fledglings all together in one spot.
It was a treat for sleepy eyes and I could not quite believe it. But I was right in assuming that the young had fledged from the nesting box I had placed in our strawberry patch.
They were there for several minutes, and she repeatedly went from one to another, feeding each a bug just caught or one previously devoured and regurgitated. She caught several more bugs as I watched, pounding them several times to make sure they were dead, and fed them immediately to her young.
Never before have I had such front seat entertainment. Then dad, from his perch in the maple, had to spoil it all by giving a distress call, and each one took off in directions each to its own.
But it was only Foxy, our giant house dog, who came around the end of the hedge, tossing a mouse she had caught in the air. She tossed it again and again, thinking, I’m sure, in her mind, that it was a bison, a wild tiger, or perhaps a polar bear, until I commented to her that she was a good dog.
Needless to say, I was more inclined, at the time, to give her a slap on the ear or a kick in the butt. My Little Lady, I know, would have chuckled at my frustration about the situation.
Such is life, as the breezes blow, at Westwind Farms.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105