Dying

     Old dog and I went off into the woods today. Some of the trails are grown in a bit, primarily with jewel weed. The roots are close to the surface so they were easy to pull out as we meandered along. More problematic is the grass. Grass in the woods-- who'd a thunk it? Bits of the trails were muddy from the recent rainstorms but that didn't really bother me. A couple of new blow-downs were in evidence from the high winds that we've been having of late.

     Dog trotted along happily. Her rear is a bit weaker these days. In addition to the arthritis in her lower back and right rear hock, I am suspecting a neurological condition. I hope not. Even the best of dogs die. I hope that she will pass on [or be put down] before she becomes incontinent of stool. Stool incontinence plus a bad rear yields something that robs a dog of her dignity. And she is too good for that. I will miss her when she goes. I was hoping to get her to the first snowfall-- she loves snow-- or at least til sometime in the fall. And I don't know if I will be able to.

     Dad is dying too. 

     

sapphoq n friends says: Oh I know some smart ass will say something meaningless like, "We are all dying." The thing is that some of us are dying at a faster clip than the rest of us. Dad is in hospice. That's a pretty good indication that he doesn't have much time left. The old dog is getting weaker.
     I will love both my dad and my dog for as long as my memory will last.

Bird Feeder News: July 12, 2014

Chickadees and grackles continue to predominate at the feeders, along with the same three blue jays, a pair of mourning doves, a pair of cardinals and a single younger male cardinal, grackles and the one red-winged blackbird who continues to hang with a few of those grackles, and a few nuthatches.

     I can identify which of the three blue jays are visiting based on their facial markings, although they do tend to fly in as a loose trio most often. The one with the most gray about his face and neck drank from one of the water pans that is hidden by some wildflowers this evening. I was surprised by this as the blue jays will feed out in the open at the feeders closest to the back porch. None of the trio have presented as shy or hesitant. There are several water dishes available and I just would not have figured on him using that particular one.

     A crow came to visit me twice this week, much to my astonishment. I must have passed muster both times. The crow studied me from a perch on the nearby cherry tree and then flew off at a leisurely pace.

     The five or six house sparrows [a.k.a. English sparrows] who hang out in one of the smaller pine trees also stop in to feed along with a few goldfinches, house finches, and purple finches. Folks tend not to care for the house sparrows much but they don't bother me.

     I like the grackles too. They seem to be intelligent to me. I suspect that they hang with particular other grackles [and the one male red-winged blackbird] but that is only a guess. I do not have the means or knowledge to verify or to disprove that notion. One grackle delighted me last night by plowing into the water of the shallow dish on the ground and then taking a "bath." He used his beak to throw water on his back several times. He shook himself off and then flew to a branch to preen himself. The grackles seem to favor the shallow water dish on the ground for drinking but that was the first grackle bath that I was privileged to watch.

     Tonight something landed in an upper section of the tall oak and remained stationary for a good five minutes. I followed him as he flew down to the cherry tree and then crouched on a branch walking until he reached the long feeder and the sunflower kernels. He perched there with no difficulty and ate. I heard him use a soft call. He flew back up to the oak tree, drummed for a short bit, and then took off in a south-easterly direction. It was, no doubt, a male red-bellied woodpecker. The bird books say they will visit a feeder in winter. I have not found a reference to them visiting a feeder in the summer. But this one did.

     He may have ventured out from the woods. Or he may have been knocked about by one of the almost nightly storms we have been having. I did not see a mate or any other red-bellies around the area. Admittedly one could have flown to the oak and hid there. [Or not]. I was thrilled to see the male red-bellied in my backyard. The absence of a female did not detract from my happiness.

     Notably missing from my backyard this week/this summer have been starlings and swallows, flickers, and both white throats and white caps [sparrows]. The fox and the song [sparrows] that I saw last month have also not returned. The starlings, swallows, and flickers are all in abundance in the neighborhood. No starlings in my backyard I find to be curious. They certainly hung out here last year. I don't know what changed. Perhaps the boisterous grackles prevent the starlings from wanting to re-acquaint themselves with my backyard this year. The starlings are in the neighbors' yards though. I'm not complaining. Just saying is all.

     Swallows have never hung in the yard here and I've seen one of the neighborhood flickers in my yard only once ever since I've been here. That the other sparrows have not been around this July perhaps is related to breeding or weather conditions or something else. I think the sparrows are declining in numbers here in general but I am not for sure on that. We certainly have had a wet summer with lots of thunderstorms and high winds-- and some hail ranging in size from peas to meatballs. The summer has been so wet in fact that I haven't had to water the gardens at all, and have only had to water the plants in pots outdoors twice.

     The storms alternating with intense heat have been remarkable, not necessarily in a happy happy way. Perhaps some of the birds are also dismayed with the weather, who knows? Just because they don't use words does not mean that they can't notice weather patterns, identify other individual bird "friends and foes," and think. 

     Human beings have made assumptions that those other animals without words don't have well-developed cognitive processes. Me, I've watched birds as well as the resident squirrels and chipmunks [yes I can identify a few of those individually too] use the environment as tools to solve simple problems. Countless chickadees have used the blunt end of a forsythia bush to pry black sunflower seeds from their shells. A few have also used a rock for the same purpose. The squirrels are skilled acrobats who easily defeat any sort of "defense against the squirrels" bird feeders and baffles. The chipmunks have taken to storing corn kernels in the one compost bin which features a chipmunk-size hole. I can't leave out the one male red-winged blackbird who hangs out with some grackles daily in my backyard. He flies in with them and leaves with them. From these events I've witnessed informal evidence of what may be the deliberate usage of tools, solving problems, and identifying which grackles are in an odd group of peers.

     The birds and chipmunks and squirrels-- and indeed my own dog, cats, and frogs-- are much better at being birds and chipmunks and squirrels [and dogs, cats, frogs] than I ever could be. I don't have the same set of skills that any of them do. My dog can smell every individual blade of grass in an area where she is roaming [with my direct supervision and under voice control always]. I can't do that. Even when leaving out stuff that is accounted for by instinct, there is other stuff they do that give me the idea that thinking is involved. We humans don't have the monopoly on intelligent behavior. To proclaim that we do ignores the observations of well-respected naturalists like Bernd Heinrich. 

     sapphoq n friends

     

     

May 20, 2014 at the Bird Feeder

     There are now two families of house sparrows in residence-- one family in a small pine tree and the other near the top of a large oak. I've seen the chippy [chipping sparrow] over the past two weeks and yes, we still have a male red-wing blackbird who thinks he is a grackle. Hopefully he will figure it out before too long. 

     The mourning doves are nesting, goldfinches still all over the backyard tree, and the usual chickadees/ nuthatches/ juncos remain in force. We had two surprise visitors this afternoon. 

     I heard the "me-ow" before I saw him; a male [I think a male although there is no way of telling without instruments of torture] gray catbird. He was finely mustached and flitting about the tree cautiously. Ignoring the bird feeders as befitting his species, he issued several plaintive cries and then landed on the hook supporting one of the hummingbird feeders. He drank sugar-water from the reservoir [astonishing!] but rejected all of the other water available for drinking in the yard. He flew back into the leaves when his mate flew in. I could see his rusty coloration under his tail feathers. His mate did not come out of the thicket of leaves. The male attempted to drink from another hummingbird feeder and then both flew off. The couple came back twice after that and inspected various branches of the tree.

     The tree is some sort of sour cherry-- not the edible to humans kind-- which the birds seem to fancy. We also have a garlic patch and several other planted areas. One end holds the wildflowers and red bee balm and a bush whose name I've forgotten for the moment. The other end features lilacs, a few random tulips, ferns, several kinds of berries, and a spice bush. The gray cat birds must have found the plantings to be satisfactory else they never would have ventured into the tree. 

     The bees are out full force. My hovers are indeed back and so are the wasps and yellow jackets and a few honey bees. We don't subscribe to any sort of treatment for the grass. It grows as it will and when we mow it all down, it looks fairly green. The "grass" no longer qualifies as a common lawn. We have wild violets and other things intermingled with it. We don't use chemicals or even fertilizer. The grass and plantings all grow or not and that is the way of it. The humans have allergies and the dog is old and I like my grass to be varied and free from the foul crap that our neighbors pay to have sprayed on their more typical lawns. 

     In the neighborhood, folks tend to leave their little yellow placards up for several twenty-four hours in hopes I suspect of keeping dogs from pooping on their lawns. The chemical stuff smells nasty. I feel like gagging when I come across fresh applications on our walks. The crap in the chemical spray used binds with the proteins that are naturally present in the pads of dogs. Yes, a dog can die from that.

     Living in the modern world, all of us are to some degree or another "at war" with nature. Nature does not give a rat's ass for the likes of us. The wild things which to overgrow the artificial boundaries that we have set and reclaim what was theirs long before we ever got here. While walking tonight along the edge of a field that has an unruly collection of trees and bushes and scrub, I noted two eyes reflecting the light from my LED-hat back to me. The animal was crouched at the bottom of a tree. I figured it for a mouse or rodent of some sort [or a small kitten???]. I also figured that the animal did not want to meet the dog and I. So we kept going.

sapphoq n friends.