Playing for Time

***

For the first time in several summers we don’t have a pair of nesting doves keeping us company on the balcony, so Kim decided to feed the East Lawrence forest instead. The treats were out for less than a day before word got around the neighborhood, “Hey, guys, they have black sunflower seeds up there!” so it’s working out swimmingly. Kim adds seed mix to the saucer repeatedly throughout the day, and he’s been patiently sweeping the deck every evening. Yesterday he let the saucer run empty and then we watched as the regulars came in and picked the floor almost clean as well, so yeah, even better. They make the same mess whether the saucer is on the table or the floor, so letting them police themselves in the name of sustenance seems only right.

A question for whatever hive mind may exist: Is it a law of the universe that once a person passes the 75-year line in the sand, they are hormonally required to develop a sudden awareness of and connection with the bird world? There are two of us here, one as absorbed and engrossed as the other, so it isn’t just a little old lady thing. I have theories but I’d rather see some feedback from anyone reading. Why this particular interest during this particular decade? What draws us to these small creatures? What is this sweet love we feel for them and their utterly helpless offspring?

We get an amazing number of visitors in a day’s time, comin’ in hungry. Then they likely all fly home to fill the craws of waiting babies, back and forth endlessly until they kick the progeny out to fend for themselves. We see doves, house wrens, sparrows, and other tiny feathered guys we haven’t ID’d from images yet. So far, the wrens and other littles are too skittish for pictures – they dart away the instant they detect motion – but Kim’s gotten other good shots.

A mourning dove getting right to the business at hand.

**

None of them have any table manners to speak of but at least there have been no gang fights.

There’s water as well, and they drink a lot of it some days.

And then there’s THIS guy, whom we’d never seen up close and personal before. He’s likely a Swainson’s hawk, and he’s several times bigger than any of our regulars. By which I mean he’s 18 to 20″ long and has a 46 to 54″ wingspan when grown. Google paints him as somewhat benevolent concerning baby birds, but I’d trust that assessment only so far. Fun to see him this close, though.

**

**

There’s a lot to like.