by Mike McHugh
If you’d ever thought of getting a feeder for your back yard, in the hopes that you might attract a few colorful songbirds to brighten up your little corner of paradise; take my advice. Don’t do it! I allowed myself to fall into this trap earlier this spring. As I mentioned in a post back then, my feeder sat idle for a couple of weeks. I didn’t know what was wrong. Maybe they didn’t like the presentation. Perhaps there was a French family down the street that also had a feeder, but they would spend hours, painstakingly arranging the food, seed by seed, into attractive pattern, whereas I would just dump a couple of scoops into my feeder, much like a server in a GI mess line.
But lately, things have changed. I don’t know what it was, maybe a rude maître-d’ in the French people’s yard, but now the birds have all come flocking to my feeder, and they’re eating me out of house and home. Here I was expecting maybe a few little sparrows and a chickadee or two, and instead I’ve got an Alfred Hitchcock movie going on in my backyard.
And Lord, help me if I let the thing go completely empty. Just this past weekend we went away overnight, and when we got home the next day there were about ten doves milling about the empty feeder. When I came out onto my patio, I swear that every one of them gave me a look like I had just said something derogatory about their mother. And these doves were big. I think I saw one of them wearing a gang tattoo. I knew right then that if I didn’t fill that feeder up, and fast, my pickup truck would likely be a subject for target practice that would rival any exercise that the Air Force has ever conducted.
So now, I feel like the administrator of a government food program. I’m having sunflower seed delivered by the truckload. I’m checking with my accountant to see if birds qualify as a charitable tax deduction.
The Dang Yankee 