Hmmmm. Maybe all your birds have moved into MY yard. Yesterday I was
skinning a beaver (A roadkill) in the backyard (a four hour job) and it
seemed like all the birds in the whole dang county came to check it out.
The usual crowd of Towhees, Song sparrows and chickadees were joined by my
first yard white-crowned sparrow, and a couple varied thrushes that hang
around. Tons of house finches burbled in the trees and at one point a
Rufous hummed up to investigate the bloody rags on the work table. The
RBnuthatched yank yanked in the trees and the VG swallows danced overhead.
It was quite lively even before the robins had a fuss over something,
although George the Barred Owl did not make an appearance much to my
disappointment. For some reason everybody was singing at 4 in the
afternoon, perhaps it was eulogy for the beaver. The bird song gave the
rather messy job a very ceremonial feeling.

PS. Beavers are a lot of work to skin out.
PPS. Next time I am going to leave the dang thing on the roadside. (But it
was a perfect specimen)

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com


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