3733 Back yard business

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Art is anything you can get away with. 

-- Marshall McLuhan --

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There's some kind of very small bird hunting insects just before sundown every evening.  There's dozens of them, and they form a roundish cloud above the tops of the trees, and they swoop and dive in an intricate pattern. 

Immediately after sundown, the bats come out.  They fly in more angular patterns, with their wings more forward, and tend to spread out.  They come from somewhere in the woods on the shore of the lake.  They gave me an idea for Hercules' birthday next week.  I bought him a bat house.

About every early afternoon I hear a lot of racket out back.  We have a hawk living by the lake, and the smaller birds don't like it.  When he comes around he gets dive bombed by crows, blackbirds, and sparrows.   Something thrilling about a tiny sparrow bombing a hawk, hitting him in the back with claws out.

In the late afternoon, there's a racket from the big gum tree.  There are two pairs of woodpeckers who want to claim it as their own territory.  They chase each other all around and through the tree, screaming the whole time.

The robins who collected my yarn?  The yarn and twig nest, a few feet from the side of my house:

Momma bird is there, on the nest, although you can barely see her.  Daddy bird just chased a cowbird away.  Daddy bird is a hero.
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