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From: larrymor at crl.com (Laurence A. Moore)
Newsgroups: rec.animals.wildlife
Subject: Of Birds and Baths and Bread
Date: 17 Aug 1995 17:08:04 -0700
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OF BIRDS AND BATHS AND BREAD


It all started with bread.

I'd just bought a loaf, and there was a crust, a heel, and
some crumbs left from the old one.

Looking out the kitchen window, I saw a sparrow scratching
valiantly for morsels.

The crust, the heel, and the crumbs went out in the
yard--which scared the sparrow away.

Not for long. The sparrow returned, found the bread, and
invited several friends for dinner.

There clearly wasn't enough for everybody, so I tore up a
few slices of the new loaf and tossed them out.

More sparrows, and a couple of jays arrived.

The next day I bought more bread, and more birds appeared:
the miracle of the loaves and feathers.

#

I like birds for themselves. Nothing calms a cluttered mind
better than watching birds. They go about their business with
remarkable dedication, ignoring whatever madness man is
perpetrating in the world around them. They also keep the bug
population down. And some, such as the meadowlarks who arrived
the next day, sing better than Placido, Pavarotti, or Boy George.

The bread bill was getting out of hand, so I shifted over to
birdseed. Bought it at the local store in one-pound bags.

First bag lasted about a week.

More birds arrived.

Second bag lasted almost three days.

Third bag lasted just long enough to get to the store for a
fourth bag.

By then word had got to the woodpeckers, who flew in from
out of town.

There was one type of large seed in the bag that nobody
wanted to eat. Ground squirrels turned up for that one. Cute
little beggars. They look like chipmunks.

A wandering herd of bandtail pigeons made a side trip to see
what all the fuss was about, and ate everything but each other.

Even the odd crow (being intelligent, most of them are)
dropped in.

Then it happened.

Backing a truckload of birdseed into the yard, I saw...
feathers. Not attached to a bird. Just a pile of feathers.

The snake had snuck into Paradise: cats had arrived.

I stopped feeding the birds, and shooed off birds and cats
alike. Within a few weeks, everything had returned to the way it
was before that first fateful bit of bread. It was very quiet,
and a little lonely.

Staring out the kitchen window one snowy morning several
months later, I saw a sparrow staring back in.

Who could resist those beady little eyes?

I'd learned from the first round, though. Too much food
meant too many birds, and too many birds meant cats.

Also, I didn't want a large group of birds dependent on me
for their groceries. What would happen if I went away for a
while?

Things settled down to a nice, natural pattern. For a day
or two after I put out food, extra birds would fly in for a
feast. They disappeared when the food did. Since they didn't
stay and build nests, the area didn't become overpopulated.

After a spring shower, I noticed a lot of birds crowding
around a small pocket of water trying to get a drink. I hadn't
thought about it before, but birdseed is dry. I put out a bowl
of water, and they started drinking from it immediately.

Then they jumped in. They wanted bathing facilities, too.

I replaced the small bowl with a large ceramic bowl, and
there was standing room only. They waited in line--well,
actually they waited in surrounding bushes and trees. There were
a pair of problems, though. The new bowl was too deep for
short-legged sparrows, and not wide enough for long-winged jays.

So, a shallower, wider bowl was needed. Unfortunately, in
the world of bowls things get deeper as they get wider. What
they really needed was an official birdbath.

It's difficult to find an official birdbath. On my seventh
or eighth foray, I saw one as I was driving by a plant nursery.
It was sitting in a storage yard, unused and unloved.

Although the nursery folks weren't using it, they didn't
want to sell it. It was part of "the tone... the decor...
the ambiance," they said. After a lot of high-level negotiation,
they agreed to sell me the bowl--but not the stand. They wanted
the stand as a pedestal to display plants.

Sold! The bowl, after all, is the birdbath.

Got it home, looked for a place to put it, and found the
perfect spot. Washed it off, filled it, and waited like a parent
on Christmas morning.

Not a single bird turned up all day.

The next morning I scattered birdseed on the ground. First
one bird, and then several, arrived. They ate the seed, ignored
the bath, and left.

Over the next few days more birds arrived, ate the seed,
ignored the bath, and left.

At the end of the first week, not a single birdfoot had been
bathed, nor a single whistle wetted.

By the middle of the second week I was ready to bring back
the bowls. Then a sparrow landed on the edge of the birdbath.
He sat there for a long time just looking, then jumped to an
overhanging bush and looked some more. After long deliberation
he dropped back down to the edge of the birdbath--and jumped in.

While he was frolicking in the water, several other birds
were watching from nearby vantage points. Another sparrow joined
him, and then another. A loudmouth jay zoomed in, scattering the
sparrows. Very tentatively, the jay lowered himself into the
water, not trusting either the width or the depth of his new
pond. Then he moved around a little, then he moved around a lot,
then he was splashing water in all directions.

The new bath was finally a success. I don't know why it
took the birds so long to accept it. Maybe it had something to
do with the tone... the decor... the ambiance.

This magnificent monument to avian cleanliness sits not on
some mere concrete stand. An eight-inch-diameter, waist-high oak
stump holds it aloft. At the base of the stump, watered by the
splashings of bathing birds, cloverlike sorrel grows in lush
green abundance. Moss and ferns surround the sorrel, and
overhead a canopy of trees dapples the sunlight.

In no time this new spa became the "in" place. Birds backed
up several-trees-deep waiting to get in.

Trouble may have returned to Paradise, though.

This morning I found a note written in chicken-scratch,
pinned to my door with a feather from a legal eagle.

It demanded:
Small, medium, and large baths
Heated water during cold weather
Improved take-off and landing facilities
and
Bread.


# end #