Hi Yvonne,
This was indeed a beautifull story to write.This reminds me of my past
neighbor, when she invited me in to her yard, to identify a Slate-colored
Junco.To this Bird incedent, we became friends.She owed almost 1/2 Acre
Land right in the middle of fircrest.surrounded by Houses.The best part
was, she had a creek running to her yard,which always attracted lots of
Birds.To her advise and help, i converted my whole yard in to a
BIRD-SANCTUARY.This is also wy now we increased our population in Birds. It
would be to long to write all the Good Think what came out of this One
encounter about this Slate-colored Junco
Thank you for sharing this Story with us on Tweeters.
Ruth Sullivan
GODWIT at worldnet.att.net

t

----------
> From: ravenn at premier1.net
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: A Bird at the Window
> Date: Tuesday, January 13, 1998 2:37 PM
>
> Tweeters,
> Yesterday, while I was at work, I had a phone call from an elderly
> woman who needed help identifying a bird that had appeared at her
> window. The bird had been hanging around her house for a week. She felt
> the bird was very tame, and sweet and must be someones escaped pet. She
> described the bird as a very soft gray with a dainty bill and as it
> followed her from window to window in her home, she could see that it
> had some light on its wings and white around its eyes. It was smaller
> than a robin but was surely larger than a sparrow. She said she put out
> birdseed for it and she opened her windows and doors in hopes that it
> would fly in so she could catch it and could then possibly find its
> owner. She had called the animal shelter and a wild life care center
> and they could not help her. I spoke with her for about 30 minutes in
> the morning and then again in the afternoon for about 10 minutes and I
> finally offered to stop by her home the next morning to see if I could
> identify this bird for her.
> This morning as I parked across the street from her home, I
> immediately noticed a gray bird clinging to her window sill. Armed with
> my binoculars I discovered that the bird there was a Townsend's
> Solitaire. The woman came around the corner of her home dressed in her
> robe and I spent the next 30 minutes in her company as she showed me her
> yard and her home and took me into her livingroom to let me watch her
> new found friend. She was sure the bird came to her window to see her.
> I watched the bird as it hovered and gleened insects from an evergreen
> bush on the otherside of her yard. Her yard is rich in a variety of
> mature plants many of which had berries. The woman tapped on the window
> and moved her curtain and the bird flew over and hovered near the window
> a foot or so away from us. It then perched in a branch very near her
> window.
> In Kenn Kaufman's book, Lives of North American Birds, he describes
> Towensend's Solitaires as usually seen alone. "Feeding mostly on
> berries in winter each bird maintains its solitary status by defending a
> winter territory, staking out a supply of berries in a juniper grove or
> similar spot." Mrs. James believes this bird has befriended her and
> comes to her window to say hello to her. No way am I going to be the
> one to tell her that her bird sees itself in her window and is trying to
> ward off the "offending" bird it sees. She is happy now to know that
> this is not an escaped caged bird, but a wild bird which is adapted to
> the weather and very capable of caring for itself outside. And I am
> sure she will enjoy its company for as long as this one bird wishes to
> call her yard its home.
>
> Yvonne Bombardier
> Everett, Wa
> ravenn at premier1.net