In and Around the Garden

I’ve decided to sell one-year-old Pretty Boy. He likes to charge me, and although I stop him with a broom slap he sometimes comes back for more. He’s never expressed aggression toward my husband. And I’m the one who feeds Pretty Boy. He needs a nice home where women will not come in contact with him. I won’t sell him to a family with children, for stew, or cock-fighting. Placed in the right environment, Pretty Boy could be a good asset to a flock of hens. I’m hoping to find the right home, even if I have to give Pretty Boy away.

We have hundreds of birds on our property. This time of year, early mornings begins with a chorus of songbirds in the perennial garden. I suspect the music they sing is about an attractive mate or an expectant brood.

The perennial garden is a grocery outlet to many fowl, humming birds included. Every day, I watch a half-dozen birds shift through the top soil at the garden’s entrance. While the birds scratch for grub soil flies outside the flowerbeds, and once or twice a week I have to sweep the flagstone. I don’t mind—most of the time.

If the garden’s natural habitat doesn’t satisfy the fowl, there are weeping willows, silver and Japanese maples, locusts, oaks, eucalyptus, crape myrtles, and redwoods throughout the grounds.

In the back pasture, behind the house, ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes wade in a winter stream. I am grateful for the large house windows facing the stream so I can watch these beautiful creatures from inside without disturbing them. I do wish I had a powerful camera to capture the visiting swimmers.

With all this habitat, there is no need to put up feeders or birdhouses (unless I want to attract a particular type of fowl). I was, however, inspired to construct a chicken-wire frame stuffed with fleece tags. I once read that several types of nesting material appeals to different birds. It will be interesting to learn which birds will use the fleece, if I am lucky enough to catch them in the act or spot a nest in the garden where the majority of songbirds sing.

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