Breakfast at Burger King

Photo by Richard Sacredo on Unsplash

On the way home from a week at our cabin in Knox County OH, we bought our breakfast at the drive-through window at Burger King and then found a spot in the parking lot. My husband was so charmed by our close encounter with a red-winged blackbird that he wrote this story. 

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We paid for our breakfast croissant sandwiches and parked to enjoy them. I put down the car window and started opening my sandwich. A bird is trying to fly into our car! What is happening? I start rolling the window back up. The bird is fluttering, suspended just outside the driver's side window, squawking.  It's a redwing blackbird,  its red (patch) brilliant in the morning light.

We get the message right away. He's earned a bit of my sandwich. I toss it out and it's quickly gone.

Wait. There are more of them. A whole family is on the pavement outside the car door. I toss out another crumb. An apparently young bird shyly pecks at it. Its siblings look on, but do not challenge him. They are taking turns!

Several more crumbs, and it's my turn. I settle to enjoy my croissant sandwich. But there he is again. The brilliant father is perched on my side mirror only inches away, looking me square in the face, squawking--resplendent in the prime of his life. How can I deny him?

These birds seem very orderly and know exactly what they are doing. So if you're heading east from Coshocton on Ohio's Route 36 and are stopping for breakfast at the Burger King, buy a little extra. 

We

Waiting for Hummingbirds

 

We put our hummingbird feeders out two days ago, on April 8th.  I make the nectar myself, following an Audubon Society recipe:  

(1) Bring 5 cups of water to a rolling boil.

(2) Stir in 1 and 1/4 cups of granulated sugar. Let it boil for a minute to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat. When cool, pour into two 20-ounce mason jars and refrigerate.  

(3) Pour 3/4 to 1 cup of cold sugar water into each feeder, depending on demand. Making 40 ounces at a time provides enough nectar to fill our two feeders twice, with some left over.  

We have two feeders. one in the front yard and one in the back.  I change the nectar twice a week. I bring the feeders with the "old" nectar inside, empty them,  and clean them with hot water and white vinegar. Left alone, they will develop mold and mildew. I put "new" nectar in clean feeders. (We have two sets of feeders.)

The water in the little cup above the feeder is meant to discourage ants, and works quite well. Bees and wasps are another matter. They visit the feeders constantly, so you have to watch out for them when removing a feeder. 

While awaiting the arrival of the feisty hummingbirds (they will get into fights over the feeders throughout the spring and summer), we can see evidence of nesting activity among the seed-eating birds. The male finches have turned bright yellow. A male cardinal will court a female by offering her a sunflower seed.  Male mourning doves waddle purposefully after the ladies, who feign complete indifference.  It's a wonderful circus. 

A Christmas Miracle

The cardinal rested for a short time

in the middle of the holiday greenery.

 This post is by my husband.

Christmas Eve. we're on the front porch and it's getting dark. Our older daughter, having brought over gifts, has just left. I reach to take off my mask and open the door to go in. As I enter, a bird flies into the house with me.

The bird, what kind I can't tell, flies pell-mell around the living room, confused by the indoor lights.  Dilly Dog dashes after it, equally pell-mell.  What to do? A dead bird would break my heart.

I call to Cynthia. First we turn off the lights to calm the bird. We shut bedroom doors to keep the bird in a small area of the house. Then I open a few outside doors, hoping the bird would fly out.

But I don't see the bird anymore. Flashlight in hand, I look around.  I even look on the floor, fearing the bird had knocked itself out. Nowhere.  Maybe I inadvertently shut him into a bedroom. Not there either.

So I go back to the living room and carefully scan the Christmas tree. Nope. A little to the left of the tree, I direct my flashlight beam along the fireplace mantle. There, amidst the Christmas greenery perches a real-life red cardinal.  My Christmas Miracle.

The bird flies to a nearby window, where I am able to get it open and guide him out. He flies off.

Little Blue Heron

We live in a subdivision of cookie-cutter houses in South Laurel, called "Montpelier." There are many well-manicured lawns--not ours!!--with beautiful flowers. Some may say we fuss too much over our yards, but untamed nature carries on despite our efforts to shape and control the natural habitat. 

We saw a groundhog trundling along our backyard retaining wall. 

Last week a fox kit appeared beside the Japanese stone lantern in the yard down the street. 

The neighborhood coyote has been been caught on film as he's made his rounds. 

A doe and two fawns recently came to our yard to feast on persimmons from our curbside tree.  They paid little attention to passing cars.  After eating some fruit, the mother suddenly bolted toward the neighbor's back yard and her girls followed. 

On Monday, I raised the garage door and startled a hawk that had been roosting in our beech tree, assessing the birds at the feeders and in the birdbath as likely dinner prospects. This time he flew away, but we've seen him other times loitering under the bushes close to the feeders. 

On Tuesday, driving down Montpelier Drive, I saw a little blue heron coming in for a landing at the brook. This narrow brook, which runs behind the house on the corner, doesn't seem grand enough to be the home of such an impressive bird, so he may not be back. Still, who knows? 

Year of the Snake

Yesterday our younger daughter called to say she'd found a "garter" snake in their bedroom. It had come in through an air vent. She e-mailed a picture to help her dad, or someone, identify it. Meanwhile the snake disappeared down the vent again. They were almost happy when he later reappeared in  the bedroom, because they didn't like to imagine him trapped in the vent. Tom captured the little guy and released him in the woods, where they hope he will be happy.  And stay. 

A naturalist we know in Knox County, OH thought he was a juvenile eastern ratsnake. They are notorious for getting into people's homes, she said.

Clarence, the elderly cat who lives full time in the bedroom, ignored the intruder. 

Seven years ago today . . .

Where was I on 9/11?

I was working for an agency of the federal government in suburban Washington. Suddenly someone yelled, "Turn on the TV!" We watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the tower. By 9:15 AM, the place shut down and we were all sent home.

Because of long-standing security concerns, the facility was already walled off with cement barriers. The gates, meant to keep the bad guys out, now became frustrating bottlenecks. The exit process was grimly quiet and orderly, but we felt like sitting ducks. Getting out of that parking lot took forever.

The last person to learn of the attack was our friend and my husband's co-worker, David. He was still at home that morning, because he had to take his mother to the doctor. As usual, he had not turned on his old black-and-white TV.

The doctor's office called. "We're closing the building. You'll have to reschedule."

David assumed they must have had a water-main break. He puttered around all morning, finally leaving for work about noon. He turned on his car radio and heard ". . .worse than Pearl Harbor." That certainly sounded ominous, but he still hadn't a clue. When he reached the agency, he found all the gates closed but one.

The guard asked, "Are you essential personnel?"

"Heck, no," said David. "What's going on?"

The guard told him. David turned around and went home.