Below is a poem and a haiku I wrote for an assignment in my writing group. The cardinal is my favorite visitor to our yard, but I love to see them anywhere!
The cardinal in our birdbath.
Take Flight
The cardinal flies past the window and I know it’s melodious sound.
For me, it is a love song, letting me know I am loved.
His bright red color is like red lips kissing, touching the heart
And every time I see it I adore it more.
Through him God says, I see you, I know who you are and you are loved.
It reminds me what is important…family, faith, friends.
The fly-by is like a messenger delivering many thoughts saying
I am free, you can be free, take flight, be the adventurous person you are.
But then I sit back, a little anxious that I am being silly...
And writing this poem is like forbidden fruit and not worth anything.
The cardinal at the window feeder.
Another assignment was a writing exercise and I ended up with three words: travel, fly and cardinal. I needed to use those three words to write a haiku.
Traveling by wings
A cardinal can bring much joy-
A bright red fly-by.
The live trap was delivered to our front porch. We have had enough with the squirrels in our yard. Squirrels are cute critters with fluffy tails, and it can be fun to watch their antics, but enough is enough. We have several in our yard and we don’t want them there anymore. In particular, I like to feed the birds. Several years ago a friend told me to use safflower seeds…the birds like them but the squirrels do not. So I bought safflower seeds and it seemed to work for years – squirrels kept away from the feeder. But recently the squirrels must have developed a taste for the safflower seeds because now I am feeding more squirrels than birds.
The snow was falling this morning…the trap was tripped
So, we bought a trap. It works well and does not harm the animal, Gary says. He puts peanut butter and sunflower seeds in a ball in the trap and we wait for the critter to go in for this tasty treat. We’ve captured four squirrels already. We could get more in one day but each time we have to drive the squirrel at least ten miles away from our house to let it go. That’s what the research says…if you let the squirrel free any closer than ten miles it will find its way back to you.
It’s so happy to be free!
We look for a nice clump of trees and let the squirrel out of the cage. It’s darts out so fast. I wonder what it’s thinking.
One of the new homes for the squirrels – out in the country.
At first we just took the squirrels away and let them go. With the fourth squirrel we decided to spray a bit of fluorescent paint on it’s tail to monitor the critter…to see if any of the squirrels we take away actually find their way back to our house. We hope not.
A little spray paint on it’s tail to monitor the critter.
During this pandemic is an interesting time to be doing this…our pandemic pastime. We’re taking drives into the country often for “squirrel transfers” and it’s been kind of fun.
This activity happened last week, before the 6″ of snow came falling down on Easter Sunday, snd stayed on the ground…
As I looked through my kitchen window over the weekend I noticed a flutter of bird activity on our crabapple tree out front. On closer look I noticed the birds were robins. I was able to capture a photo of two as several flitted in and out of the tree, enjoying the berries still hanging on the branches. Robins and winter…I’d fly south if I were them.
This little guy greeted us the other day when we drove into our garage. We watched him make his way to the opened garage door and fly away. I’m sure he was anxiously waiting for us to come home.
One of the sure signs of spring is opening the door and hearing the beautiful chorus of birds singing. It is truly an wonderful sound. And these days I’m excited to see cardinals back in our yard. Over the winter the birds that normally dined at our feeders had to go elsewhere to find food.
A cardinal at the feeder with safflower seeds, before the squirrels took over.
We use safflowers seeds in the bird feeder that hangs on a pole near trees in our yard. We spend a little more money to buy nutritious, white seeds for our feeder because squirrels do not like them, so the squirrels do not disturb the various birds that come to the feeder. This plan worked for many, many years.
But, for some reason, several squirrels relocated to our yard this year and built large nests in our trees near the feeder. I’m not sure why, but this year the squirrels acquired a taste for the safflower seeds and they were attacking our birdfeeder and scaring the birds away and devouring all the safflower seeds. So much so that I stopped filling the feeder. It was hard for me to stop filling the feeder, but the seed is fairly expensive and I didn’t want to use it to feed the squirrels.
We have another feeder that is suctioned to our sunroom window and we fill it with black sunflower seeds. The squirrels cannot not get to that feeder but it fell down during the frigid, freezing temperature spell this winter so we tucked it away in the garage.
A cardinal at our window feeder, with black sunflower seeds.
With no seeds in the pole feeder and no seeds in the window feeder this winter, few birds came to our yard and we missed them.
I have now re-attached the window feeder and filled it with black sunflower seeds. We put a small amount of safflower seeds in the pole feeder. So far the squirrels have stayed away…hopefully they are retrieving all the nuts they buried last fall and will leave the birds and our bird feeder alone.
A cardinal outside our window in the leafless maple tree.
I’m thrilled to see all the birds, especially the cardinals, back in our yard. I’m glad they remembered we offer food here at this location and they returned to give us another try.
They are a sight to see. They come by the hundreds this time of year. They fly overhead about same time each day. If I had to plan an event around their appearance it would be somewhere between 4 and 6 pm. They are loud…so loud that I can hear them honking as they fly overhead even when I’m in my house with the windows closed. When I’m outside, I can also hear the flapping of their wings. It’s a wonderful sound.
They are Canadian Geese. They are beautiful to see in the air and on the water. However, if they are on land, in the yard, or on sidewalks they will leave a horrible mess behind. But at Pond Three, the blacktop path is clear and the hundreds of Canadian Geese land and stay on the water.
Photo taken one fall day of Pond Three, 2018.
Our neighborhood has three ponds (I have affectionately named Pond One, Pond Two and Pond Three) with a walking path around them. A few geese hang out in the ponds all year…in the spring it’s fun to watch the goslings as they swim across the water all lined up in a row, in-between mom and dad.
Ten little goslings all in a row. Photo taken in May, 2018.
The adults can be very protective of their offspring and hiss loudly if you get too close when they are out of the water and on the edge of the pond. It can be a bit intimidating having very large birds walk toward you hissing.
Photo taken in May on Pond Two.
While on a walk last spring I came upon a women using a cane. I smiled and said hi as I passed her by. Soon after, I came upon two adult geese with their young on the edge of the path. As two adult birds started hissing and walking towards me I stopped to wait for my new path companion so we could walk by the geese together using her cane to wave in front of us for a little protection.
Photo taken earlier this fall on Pond Two.
Last evening the rising, full moon was huge as we walked around Pond Three. It was stunning. The pond was already full of geese but more geese kept coming, flying over our heads and landing in the pond…their silhouette in the dusk-colored sky was breathtaking. We stopped in awe for several minutes just to watch the magnificent sight. (I didn’t have my iPhone along for a photo,)
My husband asked the question…do the geese stop at Pond Three because it has open water, or does Pond Three have open water because it attracts hundreds of geese? I don’t know the answer but I do know they are beautiful and strong and noisy…we wondered if they make noise all night long?
Soon the Canadian Geese will be on their way again, flying to southern parts of the United States. They do seem to enjoy this stopover in Northfield and I’m glad.
We are experiencing some wonderful sunshine and warmth after many days of grey and cloudy skies…and one day of snow.
The first snow… on October 14… which melted quickly, thankfully.
I have a flower blooming on our back deck. I noticed it a couple days ago, and it’s one I have not noticed blooming this time of year before. It’s a clematis, climbing up our pergola. It’s beautiful amidst the falling leaves that are carpeting our backyard.
A late clematis bloom.
Our back yard full of leaves.
The squirrels are busy. I decorated our front porch with some gourds a friend gave me, and had fun making a display I liked. I found out the squirrels discovered it, and liked it too. After they quickly ate half a squash and started on another, I decided I needed to stop them somehow.
Our front porch display.
At some point I must have heard of using pepper as a deterrent because that came to mind right away. So I tried it. I outlined the display with dashes of pepper and lightly sprinkled the gourdes and pumpkins and it worked! The squirrels have stopped coming and are no longer nibbling on the natural buffet they thought I was providing for them our front porch.
Squirrels are fun little creatures to watch, but there are certain places I do not want them. One is eating my porch display and the other is at our bird feeders. We fill the bird feeder we have hanging near our trees with safflower seeds because squirrels do not like them, but a lot of birds do: cardinals, chickadees, finches…
Outside our sun-room window.
I put black sunflower seeds in another feeder suctioned to our window because the squirrels cannot get at the seeds. I love seeing our resident cardinals up close, eating at the window feeder.
We do have a large squirrel’s nest in one of our trees in the backyard. I guess they can live here, as long as they behave.
This morning, after starting the coffee pot, I took my usual trip to the back deck and said good morning to “Miss Dove”, the mourning dove whose nest is in the honeysuckle vine. Her two babies (squabs) were there, although I could only see one clearly, but I’m pretty sure both mama and baby smiled back at me.
I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down looking out my window when all of a sudden I saw a flurry of activity by the nest. I thought maybe the babes were learning to fly…and then I saw a squirrel, attacking the birds.
Feathers were flying everywhere.
I immediately rushed out to scare the squirrel but by the time I got there the squirrel was gone, and so were all three birds.
Feathers were floating everywhere in the aftermath of the attack. I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe what just happened. First, my special friends were gone…were they dead? I was so sad. And secondly, I didn’t know squirrels went after birds.
All morning I kept checking the nest, hoping the birds would fly back but they didn’t. However, later I recognized one of the baby doves sitting on top of our lattice wall. I was so happy to see it. It was looking at me, and I suppose, wondering where his mama was. I didn’t know what to do so I called a friend familiar with birds and he said I could try to pick up the baby and put it back in the nest, but we decided to leave it alone since it was already capable of flying.
I recognized this baby dove on top of our lattice wall.
Eventually the baby dove flew into the tree and I can only hope it was reunited with its mother. I have no idea about the second baby dove. I hope it too survived somehow.
Ah, nature… it’s beautiful, but can be harsh. I will miss my brood.
A mourning dove, I affectionately named Miss Dove, has a nest with two eggs in the honeysuckle vine growing on the trellis on our back deck. I step outside daily to say good morning to her and she has grown accustomed to me tending my flowers and changing the nectar in the hummingbird feeder that hangs right below her. She has hatched her two eggs. Now there are three crowded into their little nest and it’s a precious sight to see.
A good look at Miss Dove and her baby behind her. Her other baby is behind her and in front of the other youngin’.
Although she let’s me come close it’s still hard to capture a good photo with the branches in the way.
Last fall a new trail in town opened and is getting a lot of use. I guess the idea “you build it and they will come” works. This is good.
Our friends were walking on this trail a few days ago when they saw folks stopped along the trail looking up…which usually means there’s something “up there” to see (much like cars pulled over in a national park…you know there is some kind of wild animal in sight!)
8-10 nests in the tree tops, a Great Blue Heron rookery.
They discovered high up in one tree there were several nests, called a rookery, and Great Blue Heron’s were occupying those nests.
When they told us about this we grabbed our binoculars and went to check it out, and there they were. I didn’t know the big, beautiful Great Blue Heron I often see standing so tall and majestic in water near shore, built their nests in the tops of trees…it was interesting to learn and fun to see.
Notice the Great Blue Heron in tree top…zoomed with my camera iPhone. This is when a good camera lens would be nice.
We counted eight nests in one tree and over all we saw five herons. We stayed there to watch a while as a couple herons flew away and then a couple flew back.
GBH on Pond #3 last fall, 2017
It was entertaining – and as we stood there along side the trail looking up – others stopped to find out why.
Matthew 6: 26-27 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
