Wednesday, March 7, 2012

I. Can't. Stand. It.

Saturday!


THIS is happening right now!  On my front pathway!  It's too much!  I've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting, and it's just about to POP.  Any day now.  Well, let's be honest.  I'm leaving town Friday, so I'm quite sure it will pop first thing Saturday morning.  But still!


TODAY!


And I have these all over my front yard.  Because of the rats.  Well, they're not technically rats since they have wings.  And beaks.  And striped faces.  But they're just like rats.  This winter I was completely overrun by song sparrows.  They're awful.  They're bullies.  They're mean girls.  Like Lindsay Lohan before that bizarre plastic whatever she had done.  What the hell?  They take over nests and feeding areas of the really cool birds whose potential hasn't yet been fully realized.  The band birds.  And the brainy birds.  And the theater birds.  And the ones who wear glasses and have really, really big hair.  No, wait.


This is NOT a song sparrow.  This is Lesser Goldfinch.  
He's in B lunch and sits at a table by himself.


Anyway, I made the rookie mistake of buying some songbird food that had some of the cheaper millet, small pellet-y, whatever stuff in it, and that's what song sparrows like.  A lot.  They were going through a feeder a day!  I got tired of saying "squirrel" to the dogs and sending them outside to their unending disappointment, so I quit feeding them.


But much to my delight, after I cut back the knee high weeds (it's been a long drought -- I was just happy to see some green), I discovered sunflowers.  Lots of them!  In February!  It's been warm and wet here, and they have managed just fine.  And they're everywhere.  Turns out, those horrible varmints only like the cheap stuff and spit the sunflower seeds out.  So, they germinated where they lay, and now, I'm getting ready for a bumper crop.  Thanks, guys.


Stay tuned.

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