A Bird Board Meeting!

I am posting this funny post just for my mother in Maine. I hope she enjoys it.

The following minutes are provided by Jo Lawrence, the District III Bird Chairman:

For today, my name is Robin Wren and I am representing BOST, that is Birds of Southern Tennessee. Recently BOST had a board meeting in my back yard and I was asked to be hostess and to bring the snacks.

The time was set for late evening and I had the snacks prepared and set out. The first to arrive was Sally House Sparrow, who lives in my carport. She was happy to be there, but I was at first thrown by her singing cheep, cheep, cheep.

I thought she meant the snacks, until I realized that was always her song! You could tell I was a bit nervous about this meeting! Sally Sparrow buzzed close by with her wings as a way of greeting and landed on the snack table.

Then others began to come out of the woods behind my yard, the Robins,
Blue Birds, Wrens, Doves, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Hummingbirds, Purple Martins, Goldfinches, Juncos and the Sapsuckers

The Crows, Grackles and Ravens descended from the phone lines and came as a group and joined with the Blackbirds, it was very hard to tell them apart, except the blackbirds had a purplish sheen to their heads.

The Woodpecker cousins were there, Hairy, Downy and Red. Kind of made me think of another famous trio, you know, Larry, Moe and Curly, but these three behaved themselves.

Several Wood Thrushes came in and sat by themselves on a small rise and began to practice their song.

Lastly Barn-ey Owl arrived and everyone became silent. He met all with a dark eyed glance, then nodded to Martha Mock-ing Bird who swished and swayed her feathers as she flew into place. She began to sing and all of a sudden, several others joined in with her, I found out later they were the Dixie Chick a dees and were a bit late, but they sounded good together. The Wood Thrushes accompanied them with their flute like sounds.

Afterwards, they got down to business; that is when I got my name, Robin Wren
Although, there was quite a discussion as the Goldfinch thought Goldie was a fine name and the Rubythroated hummingbird thought Ruby was quite lovely. Then they got serious and wanted me to bring you all the following message:

In spite of the differences between them, they have four (4) absolute needs in common:

FOOD WATER SHELTER NESTING AREAS

FOOD: Find out what we like to eat and serve it often and do not forget when the weather turns cold. Some of us don't leave this area.

WATER: As essential as food. Quality of the water is also very important. It MUST be clean, unpolluted and uncontaminated or it will harm rather than help.

SHELTER: Need safe perches and cover in severe weather. That means trees and houses. Tree branches to scan the area before coming to eat and houses for shelter from the hot sun, cold wind, rain and sleet.

NESTING AREAS: I thought this and shelter were the same: Nope, we need a lot to make a nest, not only a place (shelter) but materials to make that nest. No matter where we choose to go, we need materials to form the nest. Twigs, grasses, leaves or mud, soft string, bits of yarn, lint from the dryer, dust balls from the vacuum and other fibers. The blackbirds love to line their nests with dog hair and the bluebirds like feathers and Martha Mockingbird wants more strips of paper for her nest. She thinks that since she had a Famous Movie named for her and she's the TN state bird, she deserves special attention. She also mentioned that I could put her out more red apples as she thought they were better than the green apples!

One last comment, The Northern Cardinal, our regional bird came over and sang to me after the meeting. Made me feel so good when he sang "purty, purty, purty".

I promised I would bring this info to you all and I hope I've made the birds a little more familiar to you and that you'll all go home and make a point of remembering that BOST-Birds Of Southern TN-needs your support all year round.

Then maybe the Northern Cardinal will sing for you too-purty, purty, purty!!!

in the garden....