Going Squirrelly

I've been spending most days by myself.  JDB is an essential employee who works for a hospital, so he's either there or at the lab during the week.  I generally spend my days working in front of the large bay windows in the living room.  Sometimes, there are cats sleeping in various places around me and sometime in the late morning, I turn on the TV just for the noise (and the heat the TV produces, but this chilly house is a story for another time).

I have two bird feeders and a suet feeder outside these windows and I can pretty much watch the comings and goings of many feathered
friends.  The most common visitors are downy and red-bellied
woodpeckers, tufted titmice (titmouses?), chickadees, finches, cardinals, juncos, house wrens, and the occasional blue jay.

It is marvelous; I find birds to be immensely fascinating.

Not everyone who comes up on the porch is feathered, however, and the other visitors are fascinating, too, though not for the same reasons. 

I want to talk about squirrels.

Much of the time, they seemed okay with just eating what had fallen onto the mat under the feeder; but, increasingly, they kept trying to get onto the one birdfeeder and so we hung a large windchime in between the porch upright and the feeder.  Not to be dissuaded, they would jump on top of it and then look around panicked when it began to make SO MUCH NOISE and spin around on them.  Occasionally, they would still manage to get over to the feeder, and I kind of had to give it to them at that point, honestly.

But I did get them some of their own food in the hopes of keeping them from feeling quite so captivated by the feeder.  So, far it seems to be working, and has provided it's own sort of entertainment, to boot.  To watch them try to sit on the corn and eat from it without it spinning them off is...well, I don't know.  But it is fun.  And the thing that is best about them?

No matter how silly they look or how many times they are defeated, they keep trying.

The Little Things

I went for a walk today.

The sun was out, the weather was fairly warm and the sky was blue.  I couldn't NOT go and get some fresh air.

It was a very brown sort of day - last year's leaves still covered everything in the woods, there were no leaves yet and there were large swaths of mud in places due to recent rains and the heavy traffic of deer running their paths.  But it is also so clearly spring.  Daffodils are blooming.  The pussy willows blow fuzzily in the breeze.  The air was full of birdsong.  As I walked, stepping over deadfall and trying to avoid thorns of berry bushes, I turned my head constantly to follow sound or look for the source of movement out of the corner of my eye.

Between two trees, a pair of wings landed and basked in the sun.  Squirrels ran willy-nilly over and under branches, chirping if I somehow got too close.  A woodpecker lazily tapped its way down a tree trunk, exploring what mysteries might be resting within.  It was a good walk and it felt amazing to be outside in the fresh air.

I was sitting inside later, somewhat mindlessly watching a squirrel forging around under the birdfeeder when I heard a thump and, with my heart in my throat, I peeked out and there was a tiny bird beneath the window, wings a little splayed out.  I sighed and watched as the startled squirrel snuck up on it and smelled it, as if trying to figure out if it was something that would eat him or could be eaten.  Determining it was neither, it went back to foraging.  I did nothing for a few minutes more, just watching and waiting to see what might happen.  Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and went out there, the squirrel bustling off and leaving me with what was clearly a house wren.  I sat down next to it and could see it was still breathing.  I reached out and gently brushed its feather on its chest and tried to see if it looked hurt.  I don't know what I would have done if it did look hurt, but I couldn't help trying to figure it out.  I decided it shouldn't be on the porch, so I went to try and gently pick it up when it flew up and landed on a rafter, perched sort of upside down.  It has since flown away.

Sometimes, the little things aren't so little, you know?