Busiest time of the year hasn't even begun


Obviously it doesn't take much to entertain me. The TV remains unplugged most of the time in case a storm comes up during the night or when no one is in the house. I grew up with the constant warning to throw the switch at the first rumble of thunder so there would be no electricity if lightning rode in on the wiring. It's better nowadays. What with all the safety measures I just pull a special plug here and there and let the rest stay activated.

A few mornings ago we'd had a storm during the night, but the sun was shining through the windows I was having breakfast by because they allowed a totally unobstructed view of one of my favorite entertainments -- my bird feeders. A pileated woodpecker was making a valiant effort to feast on the remaining half of a suet cake hanging from the top of the metal pole.

As you know a pileated woodpecker is a big bird. From his scarlet crest to his tail he's at least three times as long as a whole suet cake, much less half of one. From the force with which he hammers on a tree trunk you know his neck is extremely strong and agile, but his body simply does not bend in the middle. When that woodpecker at my bird feeder swung upside down with his toes around wires in the empty part of the suet container his beak was way too far down to reach the suet. When he dug his toes into the suet itself his beak was too high and his backbone didn't have the hinges necessary to resolve the problem. Finally he gave up, but he has been back several times, crashing into the suet frame and leaving it swinging wildly as he flies away. Apparently it has never occurred to him to perch on one of the cylindrical feeders that would give him a landing strip to stand on while he goes after the suet.

Later that morning I went to the front porch to check on the activity of a wren that has been in evidence all winter and spring. A couple of weeks ago she made it unmistakably clear the porch belonged to her. She took up her position at the far end of it and all during day she rendered her loud, musical announcement that the premises were hers. I saw her flying the length of the porch on several occasions, so I was not at all surprised to find she was making her nest underneath the protecting leaves of a potted geranium decorating a window sill. It wasn't hard to find the location, for she had been as untidy as she was bossy, and black dirt was clearly visible where it shouldn't have been. Sure enough, she had dug a hole in the dirt of the flower pot, and that was all she had done, except for scattering the black dirt even through the screen and onto the white window sill just inside it.

I don't hear the song any more, nor do I see the wren, so I suppose she found a nesting place more to her liking. Maybe she would have stayed if she'd known that, any day now, a host of tiny ants would be parading periodically across the front steps. Wrens do like insects and spring always provides that delicacy.

On the other hand, it wouldn't have seemed right to interfere with the orderly existence of a colony of ants. Young folks used to have glass containers filled with dirt and housing a colony of ants. The young folks watched them go about their work, carrying lumps of earth and never bumping into one another because it's the habit of an ant to signal to another one by tapping it on the head with an antenna. It's written that ants hold a definite ceremony for a dead member of their colony, then they take its tiny body far away from the food supply. Come to think of it, sweeping up a bunch of ants for the wren might not have been the right thing to do.

I hear people say there are so many entertainments going on in our town these days they just can't get around to all of them. A lot goes on in my yard, and the busiest time of the year hasn't even begun.



Comments are currently unavailable on this article

▲ Return to Top