July 17, 2008

For the Birds

I expected seeing a turkey in flight near Chili's was going to be my oddest bird sighting of the week. But I was wrong. Yesterday evening a hummingbird decided to hum around my head for a surprisingly long period of time. Who knew they were so friendly?

Posted by armand at July 17, 2008 10:46 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Ecology


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I want hummingbirds to come to my house! I guess they don't do the ghetto.

This morning, my older cat was insisting on sitting in the far window in my bedroom rather than coming downstairs to fight for her share of the morning meal with the other, more gamine and food-fixated cat. I went over to pet her and make sure everything was okay, and she seemed fine.

All of a sudden I notice, perched atop the slidey-screen thingie that is set outside the old window's opening, and which was only a bit higher at that moment than the bottom of the open sash, a bird with a mottled yellow belly that suggested that it was something less than fully grown. I'm not sure whether the cat could have gotten a paw up there or not, and I really don't think she ever noticed the bird, but the situation seemed perilous to me on any number of levels (I envisioned the cat crashing into the screen, and then riding it pell-mell to the sidewalk two floors down).

And there was the bird, still: a cat arm's length below; human through the glass only six or eight inches away; and the sort of movement and surprise that usually startles a bird away. Not this one, though; only when I tapped the glass for a good ten seconds, did it finally see fit to take off.

Only afterward did I kick myself for not reaching out six inches to my right to grab the camera that was sitting right there.

Posted by: moon at July 17, 2008 04:11 PM | PERMALINK

Turkeys are pretty common here... there's a rafter of four adults that has been wandering around my neighborhood recently. They seem to like my front yard, for reasons unclear.

Posted by: jacflash at July 17, 2008 07:49 PM | PERMALINK
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