*tossing furry birds up in the air and dancing happily* Now isn't that the best way to start a day? It's almost as good as finding real tuna in your dish.
We've been singing bird songs a lot here at Kitty Cable lately because it's fledgling season! The first baby birds to arrive in the back yard were the baby robins. Mr. Robin was sure pleased with himself when he brought them to the bird bath and showed them where to find the best worms out in the middle of the yard. They were pretty shy and didn't want to come out from under the foliage by the fence line but we're fairly sure that there were at least three young ones.
The next group was much, much larger and a whole lot noisier!! Mom is usually sensitive to noise, but she was so happy to see the baby woodpeckers that she didn't care about all their yelling. You see, she'd been sitting on the patio one day a couple weeks ago and saw those damned ravens flying around the dead tree next door where she thought the woodpeckers had nested. Well, as we all know, if those ravens are around nothing small and defenseless will survive so Mom felt sad for days afterwards. We didn't even see the grownup woodpeckers and thought that they must have moved on but then out of the blue sky came not one or even two woodpeckers...........but a total of *seven* of them! There were the proud parents and five fledglings; three females and two males.
To be perfectly specific, these are Red Shafted Northern Flickers which is a fancy name for a very beautiful type of woodpecker. Here's a picture of one we found on the internet:
The prettiest part of these birds is the underside of their wings which look as if they'd been dyed in pastel shades of apricot and tangerine. This is what they look like from a cat's point of view:
They're not much on singing, but they're fun to watch. They're getting used to Mom now so they land right up close to the patio where she can see them. The woodpeckers stay here almost all year round so Mom decided to get a really cool bird feeder so they can have a snack when they stop by for a bath. We really have to give her credit as a producer for Kitty Cable because without her contributions of things like bird baths and feeders and flowers, there wouldn't be any entertaining birds to watch. *snickering* The bird feeder has proved to be pretty entertaining to the squirrels too but we'll talk about that later. Today we're trying to stay focused on baby birds because there's more than just baby robins and woodpeckers on the Backyard Channel! There's more going on out there than on Animal Planet!
The baby woodpeckers have shown up without their parents a couple of times since they were introduced to the Backyard so they're probably approaching adolescence since they can be dropped off at the playground for a couple of hours without getting into too much trouble. We wish we could say the same thing for the gaggle of tweeny girl birds that showed up yesterday!
OMFG. We were just lazing around yesterday morning waiting for the afternoon thunderstorms to add some interest to the day when the most gawd-awful racket kicked up in the Backyard. First one, then two, then three half-grown female blue jays showed up.
You really have to have experienced something like this to know what it's like to be around that many babbling and screeching little girls and the closest human comparison we could find on the internet was a reference to something called a "justin bieber" who gathers tweeny human girls in one place and lets them screech and scream. Believe us, three tweeny female blue jays can make almost as much noise. They never stop talking! Mom was still happy to see them tho. She knew that their nest was somewhere close by because their father often dropped in for a visit and once we saw him charge at a raven and chase it away. We feel the same way about ravens but for the blue jay to attack it, he had to have a personal interest in making it leave. Blue jays are pretty bold but those ravens are about three or four times his size. We're going to give him two paws up for being brave but damn, we wish he'd taught those girls of his how to shut their beaks once in awhile!
At least one squirrel shares our opinion about the blue jay sisters. He was hanging out at the small brick bird feeder Mom keeps under the bushes for the finches. The squirrels would like to eat it all at once or haul it away but Mom put it inside a cage where they can get bites but they have to share it with the birds. Squirrels are greedy and don't share well so when the blue jay sisters showed up, that squirrel didn't even budge. He looked a bit concerned and kept one eye out for them, but he didn't move an inch. Well, after the girls had a bath, (which took awhile because they apparently like to gossip while they're bathing), they noticed that there was a squirrel hanging upside down from a cage that appeared to be filled with tasty snacks. You'd think they'd never seen a food court before coz there was a lot of chattering and wing fluttering between them. The boldest of the three tried to make her first swoop at a squirrel but since she's small it didn't go that well. She tried to convince her sisters to help her and together the three might have chased him off but the other two girls weren't quite brave enough to try it yet. We're sure that it won't be long before they have maximized their ability to piss off squirrels.
As you can see, there's been a lot of activity going on in the Backyard since Mom installed the bird feeders but she was happiest this morning when she noticed the squirrel proof bird feeder swinging and a tiny flutter of leaves in the nearby sapling. She got very still, just like a cat, and after a few minutes, a little bitty fluff of grey feathers darted out, pecked at the bird feeder and zipped back into the leaves quick as a flash! Mom got a big smile on her face and when he did it again, she almost laughed out loud because it was a tiny grey house finch! Finches are her favorite bird because they're so cute and happy and they get so excited about life that it sort of bubbles over and makes them all bouncy.
Now we have robins and woodpeckers and blue jays and finches dropping in to visit regularly and since the bird feeders have been such a hit on the Backyard Channel, Mom said she'd install one in the Frontyard too and we'll have birds to watch even in the winter. Yay! We're going to celebrate by singing along with Bob one more time and then we're going to take a nap.
Hugs and purrs,
Frankie and Deano
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