Historical December 1989 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
We started “feeding birds” because of one with a fuzzy tail and only one eye…a beat-up squirrel dam who was too hungry to run.
We gave her a slice of bread, and watched the back yard.
For 7 years of her one-eyed life, and kids… and saw: In March (usually) we clean and till our little garden, and see boat-tail and common grackles.
Most just call them “black birds”, but they have a purple iridescence on the shoulder.
They relish the grubs we rake up. Be-Doom, Be-Damn!
We think the fellow trying to render our neighbor’s tree to matchsticks is a hairy, not downy woodpecker, because we can’t see a flash of red on his be-damning head. Pest? That mockingbird? Sits at dawn and sings the same song—again, again and again. Large bird, flash of white on the tail, comes to the feeder, then sings again and again.
In late April or May come red-winged blackbirds.
They flock with the grackles, fly off in flights towards Forest Park, and then go north to summer.
We have had a wren—an irascible being who scolded from the nearest fence— Bruce said, “Isn’t she the cutest thing!”— and ruby-wing hummingbirds, both of which came to our Rose of Sharon but are seldom seen now. Pesticides? Habitat?
We ever have bluejays. Large birds (almost as big as a pigeon), they have overgrown young.
A bird as big as mom will cry “Poor Bird, Poor Bird” and get fed. Mama seems to think this ok; I think it poor feminist logic, but birds will be birds. Any St. Louis household should have cardinals.
One snowy day, we had four pairs—eight individuals—saying “chipchip” on our patio; we seldom have less than two.
The males sit in the bushes and let the khaki-clad females scout out the feeder.
So much for male dominance?
We also have the “nuisance birds” — starlings and sparrows. Did you know that one variety of sparrow and all starlings were brought here by some ecological nincompoop who wanted “all of Shakespeare’s birds” in the U.S. of A.? (They had no biological controls). Bruce (husband) claims to be able to tell a European Tree (the imported one) from a House from an American Tree from a Chipping—and says we have no songsparrows by their cocks.
All their hens are brown. (Wonder if the cocks can tell?) As long as my gutters are cleaned of their nests, I couldn’t care if it is a Jones sparrow.
They chip, twit, flirt, and fly in girlish flights. Rather charming! Maybe the starlings were meant to be made into pies, as in nursery rhymes.
Once imported, they took on to roosting and defecating on parked cars.
This last has a social value: it gives males the excuse to “wash-the-car” rather than “visit-the- inlaws!’ But the best excuse for starlings are that they are funny!
For several years, a one-legged starling came to our feeder. How he lost one leg is a mystery, but he made great two-point landings (leg and bill) and righted himself with almost regal majesty. Once, in zero weather, I filled the birdbath with hot tap water.
The starlings perched in a ring as each took his turn to wade out and twiddle his bony toes in the warm water.
We also have snowbirds (slate-colored juncos) coming in fall, using the feeder when times are hard, then going north.
And the robins, who may come and go, come or stay, who is sure? That’s why the cock is called “Alderman Robin’: Starting Easter 1989, I went out on the back porch and was roundly chastised for my sins—in the name of my daughterDee-Dee-Dee!
We had a Carolina Chickadee!
All of this—not to mention the passing thru doves and the one-or-two rabbits that have appeared in hard times—on a 30′ by 110 ‘ St. Louis City homestead.
We still feed our fuzzy-tailed neighbors, who started all this, and none of whom our plethora of well-fed cats, despite 20 years of cricknecks, has ever made a captive.
A good book for wildlife watching in our urban area is The City Kid’s Field Guide, by Ethan Herberman.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, December 1989.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1989_12.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
