Wednesday, January 30, 2008

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....

16 comments:

  1. thank you. i wish i had written it. my friend in the clarksville garden club sent it to me and said i could post it. i love it. unfortunately, something happened between it and the web and it came out a little messed up. i edited it no less than 10 times to fix it. urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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  2. I love the Board Meeting. I bet it would hold a child's interest. I will copy & try it on the boys this weekend. They love for me to read to them. They have what the oldest calls "Their night time book." Stories of the Bible is there also. If it is alright with you, Tina.
    They love to watch the birds & they love animals.

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  3. This was cute --my little bird friend is still slamming his head off my door window. I am hoping the foil will make him stop --I must admit I found it quite humorous at first but now I feel bad. He looks so determined to come in thru the window. It isn't a window you can open --it's on the french door, lol. Any other ideas to stop him I'd appreciate:)

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  4. A curtain? Least for alittle while, til he gets the picture. There are magnetic rods for exterior doors.

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  5. Oh no anonymous, what kind of bird is it? Usually that only happens on big windows. That is really strange. I say like Dawn, a curtian and if you don't wanna block the window view maybe a sheer curtian in a bright color or on french doors he it is in the same area all the time you could cut a biece of paper or cardboad and place in the panels affected. Good luck with it. Poor bird.

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  6. Thanks Dawn and Jean --a curtain will have to go there --he looks so determined to come in that window. I'll have to get the magnetic rods since I like my view too much to give it up. I'll keep the curtain up until he realizes he can't come in:)

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  7. Forgot to say he is a Tufted Titmouse --so cute!

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  8. Tina, I love this writing!
    Anonymous, I have a problem with birds flying into my dining room window, finally decided they were seeing their reflection in the mirror over the buffet.

    Here is a good web page on your problem, but it basically says what Jean and Dawn have said previously. www.birds-in-garden.com

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  9. Thanks Nina, I will have to check out that site. Today is a snow day here so I have lots of company. We are sorting thru a closet and of course making cookies and homemade pizza. YUM-YUM Can't say much about the yard today --except I look forward to SPRING!!! We much rather be outside:)

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  10. hi all,
    helene of the clarksville garden club sent this to me with some info on the great American birdcount. i will post that soon.

    i thought it was a cute story and jo must be very creative. everyone has loved it. it is interesting while teaching people about the birds. purty purty purty. i actually listened to the cardinals yesterday to hear if they sing this way, and they do.

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  11. Nina,
    i forgot to say i love the picture of the yucca 'flowers'. i am going to try to scan into the computer and do a post nearer Easter on them. is that ok?

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  12. Yes Tina it's o.k. with me. I am already making my tulips trying to get a head start while the weather is bad.

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  13. Mom, anonymous, dawn with peaches, lola and skeeter do you all remember when nina and i were talking about making tulips from styrofoam egg cartons and putting on yucca leaves to welcome spring? nina sent a really good picture and instructions so i will have to post it soon. it might be a good snow day activity. if you don't have yuccas you could place them on tree branches or something else. felder rushing also has a picture on his website but no instructions.

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  14. We could've used that project today, lol. I had a few kiddos fighting over the shredder --went thru a boxful of papers in the closet. I look forward to the posting --we can always do it on a rainy day:) Tina, I hope the puppies are okay:( They are so cute --the kids loved seeing the picture. Thanks for posting that --please update on the other two pups. I hope we don't have ice in the morning --I did take the kids outside this morning --we skidded and walked the back road by our house --we were trying to give daddy some sleep time:) Nighty-night

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