bird talk

This morning a man came into the library with a photo of a bear he'd seen at a lake in our town. It was standing near a tree, and looked pretty big - he said it was a young bear; he came in to make copies of the photo. He says there's a mountain lion living three towns away.

I've seen him in the library before; he has a German accent and is willing to talk. Somehow the subject of birds came up. "Do you know", he said, "that it's illegal in Europe to feed the birds in summer?" Well, I know they say it makes them dependent on you and that isn't good, but he said one reason is that if they're eating your seed, they aren't eating bugs - esp. mosquitoes. That makes sense, doesn't it?  But he also told me that the birds bring the hard-shelled seeds to their young, and the babies die because they can't digest the hard seed shells. Is this true? Two good reasons to stop feeding birds except in winter, when they need the help.


Yesterday morning my brother took a short walk and came upon a little sparrow who'd been injured - bounced off a car, maybe? One eye was gone and the head injured; but it tried to sit up when he took it, so he placed the birdie under a bush. When he got home he drove with a box to get it. He put the box with birdie on a cloth in my greenhouse, for a warm place, and tried giving it water with a dropper.

I continued after he went to work. But the poor little thing wasn't opening his mouth for me; there was blood under his head, and he didn't last too long. I thought my brother'd want to bury him, but he said he doesn't bury birds - it doesn't seem right since they aren't earthbound creatures. So his little body was placed inside a dense arbor vitae for a natural resting-place. Good night, little prince.