We sat on our screened-in porch this evening enjoying the cooling breezes as the day settled into evening. We were listening to the evening serenade of our resident cardinal, who entertains us most evenings, "Brigadoon, brigadoon, tyoo, tyoo, tyoo." This was the preferred song of the evening, even though he/she has quite a repertoire.
It seems that every summer we have a different resident bird that manages to entertain us in many and various ways. Both Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal have chosen our pear tree as home, and keep us entertained with wicked, startling flashes of color, and with their singing. I really don't know if they both sing, if just one sings, or if it is Mr. and Mrs. I do know that yesterday evening our yard was curiously quiet as we sat on the porch. I remarked that the birds seemed to have deserted us. I could hear them singing from several houses away.
Then, when Don was getting ready to go to bed and most of the daylight had vanished, he said to me, "Come look out the window." There on our birdbath sat a beautiful hawk, preening and cleaning its feathers. No wonder all the small birds were staying away. The hawk is a beauty, but is a deadly hunter. We sometimes find piles of feathers in the yard. The hawk leaves only feathers after its meal.
But I have another hawk story about another bird of an earlier summer. When we still lived at our last house, a mother hawk decided to build her nest in a tree that stood right beside our screened-in porch. Then she promptly filled it with eggs. We still had two cats at that time and Mama hawk did not like our cats, and she did not like us. She especially did not want us sitting on the porch - poor planning on her part. She should have built that nest elsewhere. She would stand guard from a tree across the street and fly full speed directly at us, veering upward at the very last moment to avoid flying right through our screen wire. She caused several spilled cups of coffee. We did have a humming bird who forgot to veer and smashed into the screen. She couldn't get out, so I very gently pushed her little nose/bill/snout with my finger. She/he flew away a little dizzy headed, I thought.
But we grew quite attached to the hawk and enjoyed watching her as she took care of her young, and guarded the nest. At the end of the summer she began pushing the "little" ones out of the nest one by one. One morning the cats came and got us because something was amiss on the porch.
One of the little ones was hanging upside down with one claw caught in a window screen. When we tried to help her she was so frightened that she was harming herself with flopping about. We finally called the bird rescue people who came with their equipment and rescued the baby.
Two summers ago we had several bird feeders in the yard. One day we noticed a bright chartreuse bird eating at the feeder. We watched it with our binoculars, and sure enough, it was a parakeet. He must have escaped from someone's home, because he would let us walk up quite close to him as long as we didn't try to touch him. But he was wily enough to never let us catch him. He entertained us all summer. Every evening we would start watching for him. If a car was in the driveway, he would sit on the side mirror and admire himself. And he tried his very best to socialize with the other birds, following them around and trying to make friends. They treated him like an unwanted alien visitor.
As summer drew to a close we began to worry about his survival. We even bought a small bird cage and set it up in the yard with the door propped open with enticing food inside. But he wanted nothing to do with it. The only bird brave enough to go inside was a red-winged black bird. And they seem like pretty gregarious/brave little birds. But we didn't want him for a pet.
As summer ended all we could hope was that Mr. Green Jeans was wise enough to join up with a flock that migrated south. He would fit in perfectly in a tropical climate. Anyway, he has never come back to our yard, and, believe me, we have watched for him.
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