Isn’t this a perfect picture, a cardinal and a sparrow making peace over a birdbath. We love our new house, they love our new birdbath.
We lived in our last house (which was also our first house) for 36 years. It was a three story house with fruit trees in the backyard. No matter the lawn was a dried out patches of grass, there were so many birds in those trees, I loved watching them going about their busy bird business, while getting to eat fruit from those lovely trees. Blue Jays and Cardinals and sparrows and more whose names I did not know.
There was so much fruit on those trees that I every summer I’d get in touch with a fabulous volunteer organization called Not Far from the Tree. They’d come and pick fruit, each take home a bag and distribute the rest to shelters. I loved this arrangement.
In the course of renovating the house, we added a third floor deck. It was glorious, I felt I was up in the tree tops with the birds. Over the years, the fruit on the trees dwindled and eventually both trees became blighted and died and had to be cut down and with them, went the birds. I was bereft.
I decided to get a bird bath. I did not put the bird bath on the ground, in the middle of the English garden I’d created (after I removed the dead grass around those stumps of trees) but rather I got one that attached to the railing on the new deck. The rationale: it’s high as the tree tops, surely birds would welcome a way station on their various journeys. I even sprinkled bird seed on the railing. I rejoiced when one little bird did stop but avoided the birdbath. Undaunted, I refilled that birdbath every day to no avail ail. I needed. Up giving the birdbath to a friend
Then we moved. The New House didn’t have third floor, and but for stand of evergreens hugging the back of the yard, it didn’t have much in the way of greenery. So I did pots: plants in pots and the butterflies and bees came to check it out. I did put birdseed out but that brought squirrels and rats and the occasional raccoon.
I decided to once again get a birdbath. This time, a stand-alone
One morning a beautiful sight: two sparrows then a crowd of sparrows which, I learned are referred to a quarrel, they came to my birdbath. Not to bathe but to drink. The’s ok – as long as they were using it, I got joy out of it. Watching. Then came the day when one brave fellow plunged into the water and oh my, was that adorable to see it fluff and spray and have a ball in the water. Over the next weeks, we were visited by the occasional Blue. Jay, and husband and wife Cardinal and some fat robins. I now have to clean and re fresh my birdbath daily. No problem in the spring summer and fall, but as cooler weather approaches I cannot bear the thought of giving up on my daily fathered pleasures.
I’m going to up my birdbath game: I’m getting a one with a heater.
