Close Encounters of the Fowl Kind

There's been a lot of fowl play around my place this weekend. This bird house is on the side of the carport. There is another one hanging from a branch in the back yard. Both have been taken over by wrens. This is a vast improvement over their choice last year of raising a family in my hanging flower basket. Mama bird would fly out abruptly and scare the crap out of me every time I watered the plant (very carefully avoiding the nest), even though I was expecting it (except for the first time, when I wasn't).

I haven't seen the babies, but I'd say they're getting bigger and hungrier. They sure do make a ruckus when mama bird flies in with some vittles. And I'm not the only one who has noticed the cheeping of the chicks. Zima has taken to hanging out on top of PDM's truck, parked in the carport adjacent to the birdhouse. I give it about 50-50 odds that one day she takes a flying leap for it. The odds would be higher if she wasn't 14 years old. She'll probably just sleep on the truck cab and dream about catching the birdies. If we were letting Moxy outside, she would be all over it. Moxy used to climb the tree and literally go out on a limb to mess with the other bird house earlier in the spring.

The neighborhood hawk attempted to land on a tree branch across the street this morning, but he broke it. For some reason, this made me laugh. Maybe he needs some avian Slim Fast. He quickly flew over to the power lines in front of my house. I got one photo of him before he flew away, but it didn't have enough magnification to see much of anything. Darn it!

Our hummingbirds have grown fiesty. For a while, they would visit the feeders one at a time. Very calm, no fighting, no competition. Now there are at least two going at it. It is much more entertaining. Aerial acrobatics galore, and twice the sighting potential. Now that they have goaded each other into being all territorial, they've grown much bolder about the non-bird "challengers", such as humans and cats, and even yellow jackets. I cracked up yesterday when Moxy and one of the hummers were having a "face off" through the kitchen window. Moxy was chittering and pawing the window and that little bird was holding his ground and getting all up in Moxy's face. Today the bird did the same thing to PDM through the window, mirroring his every move. I hope he doesn't get attacked by the killer hummingbird while he is outside grilling our steaks tonight.

And now the gang's all here! I just erased the bit I wrote about the barred owls being the only regulars who didn't show up for all the bird action this weekend. It is half an hour before sunset, and the owls just started calling to each other. I can't see them, but they sound like they're pretty close.

BAT UPDATE: PDM called around, and it turns out that bats are protected here until August 15, in order to let them complete their nesting season unmolested. So we can't do anything about them until then. We've decided to mount a bat box on the house close to the vents that they are currently using to get into the attic. That spot is ideal for bats, which is probably why we have them in the attic to begin with. They'll be able to continue ridding our yard of skeeters and we'll get our attic back.

A Winkin' Kitty!

Happy Friday, everyone! This Friday CatBlogging post is dedicated to the original winkin' kitty. I'm sure she'd like it if you check out her new book lover's forum: Cyber City Bibliotheca. No doubt you'll recognize a few familiar screen names over there.

I'm exhausted from herding cats - figuratively at work, and literally at home (if two cats counts as a "herd"). The project I am involved with at work has to do with electronic medical records, and while we are evaluating paperless radiation therapy documentation, the physicians who are piloting this new system have to do it the new way AND the old way. Keeping track of them and making sure both get done (and match each other) is like herding cats. Add to that the changes that we are making in how the physics staff uses some the software applications, and you have a recipe for barely controlled chaos while we're sorting it all out. And a ton of extra work.

And at home, they've been painting the new porch this week. Guess where Zima and Moxy like to hang out now? You got it -- the new porch railings. So when we let them out in the evening, one of us has to stay with them and attempt to keep them away from the freshly painted porch. Now that Moxy has discovered that one of our birdhouses is occupied, we have a hard time keeping her out of that as well. Keeping two determined cats from going where they want to go in an open yard is a difficult assignment.

Whatever happened to Hoppy?

'Hoppy' was the nickname that PDM and I gave the scrappy little cardinal who showed up at our feeder one day with a broken leg. This was three summers ago, just after we were married. We were living in an apartment and had hung a couple of bird feeders on our balcony to give us (and Zima) something interesting to look at besides the TV. Hoppy's leg was twisted at an odd angle and her foot was all curled up and useless. I was sure she'd never make it. She surprised me by coming around again and again. Over the next few weeks, the foot on the injured leg slowly shriveled up until one day it was just gone. It was a good thing when the foot finally fell off, because she got around on the leg stump much better without the twisted foot getting in her way. She became very adept at getting around with only one leg, and was a ton of fun to watch. We called her 'Hoppy' for obvious reasons, and looked forward to her regular visits. She came around with some other birds nearly every day and got her fill at the feeder. We probably had a lot of repeat customers, but she was the only one distinct enough to recognize individually.

In February of last year, we moved out of that apartment and into our house. I felt a pang of guilt about leaving Hoppy, but what can you do? Now we are feeding a different flock of cardinals a few miles away. Sometimes when I watch the birds at our feeders, I wonder what became of Hoppy. I hope that she has found another feeder nearby and has managed to avoid predators and hunger. I'd like to think that someone somewhere is writing a blog post about the cute little one-legged cardinal with the big personality who started showing up at their feeder late in the winter of 2006.