I’m sitting out on the front patio early this bright Saturday morning.
Chesley
was off earlier to take part in some sort of Coastal Clean up project.
She was accepted into the National Junior Honor Society and now has to
accumulate a certain number of volunteer hours. The early morning light
is so beautiful, and it is such a quiet and peaceful time before the
rest of the worlds awakes and starts stirring. All I can hear is the
hissing of the lawn sprinklers from the neighbor’s house. The small
planes haven’t started taking off from the executive airpark down the
road so it feel like I’m alone with the world.
As
I sit reading I start to notice a few mourning doves mourning around.
I’m not sure what it is but they make me sad. Maybe it’s just the name,
or the sound they make, or perhaps that they seem so stupid. As I
continue my morning reading I notice one of the young squirrels we
started seeing after the hurricanes last year. I think that they were
toddlers when the Hurricanes hit and their nest was knocked out of a
tree. They were so small back then that we could barely see them
hopping in the tall grass out in front. Now they have grown and it is
getting harder to tell them apart from the other adult squirrels accept
by the way they come down from the tops of the trees to sit on the
lowest branch and chatter at us as we sit on the patio. As I watch him
I ask what he’s so excited about. It is then that I notice the other
young one, and up above him in the oak tree is another squirrel, and
look over on the roof next door there are two more. Wow, and as I look
higher up in the other tree there are two more chasing each other in
the topmost branches of that tree. That seems like a bunch of squirrels.
Oh
look, here comes a little chick a dee to feed at the bird feeder. And
as I’m watching her I seem a Blue Jay fly up and perch on a branch.
Here comes another jay, and now I can hear a couple more in the tree
out towards the street. The noisy Blue Jays seem to have attracted a
couple of mocking birds to add to the growing cacophony of sounds. I
don’t see them but I can hear the Crows just off in the distance.
Probably over in the trees in the neighbor’s back yard behind me. I’m
somewhat startled by the number of animals that seem to be arriving.
I’m
still keeping an eye on that first squirrel as he is just above my head
and there is this disquieting feeling that he may jump down at me. What
was that noise? It sounded like something big flying over head. It was
a blue heron or white egret grunting as it flew over head. I’m a little
surprised I haven’t seen the cardinal yet. He has been at Chelsey’s
window recently trying to peck his way in, or attacking his reflection
in the window. Hm, I’m beginning to become a little concerned about all
the wildlife collecting in the yard here. Is this some sort of
rebellion, or are they all just happy to see me?
Holy crap! This REALLY BIG Black crow just stopped in to visit the bird
bath. Not really much of a bath to this bird, more like a small puddle
to this guy. I wish I had the camera ready, but he’s gone before I can reach for it.
It
is suddenly very noisy and the collection of wildlife seems to keep
getting larger and larger. I’ve seen or heard just about every kind of
critter I’m used to seeing no. Just when I think everyone is here I
begin to hear the Peacocks screaming in the distance. Oh, and there
goes a red billed ibis of some sort. I’m sitting very still, not real
sure what is going on right now. I’m beginning to think that the
squirrels are playing some sort of game.
The
other day I noticed that the squirrels were sitting on the bird feeder
helping themselves to the bird feed. That may not sound surprising, but
a long time ago my brother gave Cindy this Wild Bill’s electronic bird
feeder that keeps the squirrels from getting to the bird feed. It runs
off a little 9 volt transistor radio battery and the principle is when
the squirrels try to climb down onto the feeder they touch the metal
hanger that the feeder hangs from the tree on. The top of the feeder is
also metal and when they touch that part of the feeder it completes an
electrical circuit and the squirrel is very unhappy. It is a mild but
startling shock. It only takes one or two shocks and the squirrels give
up ever trying that again. After all the squirrels in the neighborhood
became aware they just stopped trying and I guess I got pretty lax in
keeping a fresh battery in it. So I our young squirrels hadn’t ever
experienced that shock and found that the bird feeder was a great place
for food. Well I ran out and got a new battery and I haven’t seen the
squirrels out there since.
So I’m thinking that maybe these
young squirrels are mad at me for doing that and have decided to get me
back Somehow they put the word out and all the wildlife in the
area are here to set me straight. I wait to see when this
coordinated attack will begin but nothing happens. Slowly my
managerie of animals starts to move on to somewhere else and slowly the
rest of the world starts waking up around me. I can hear someone
with a leaf blower off in the distance. A small plane flies
overhead. Someone out walking their dog passes by on the
sidewalk. Cars start driving by, a pickup trailing a boat rumbles
up the street. Time to go inside and get ready for the day.
Plenty of yardwork needing to be done.