For the birds

Call me goofy, but I talk to the birds out by the barns. Not long conversations, mind you, just a "good morning" or "evenin'," addressing them by type. Then they fly away.

What can I say? I like them and if I'm in a mood, they undo it. I pay attention to their comings and goings, what they're feeding their chicks under the bridge, up in the houses and under the eaves. I know when those babies fledge and congratulate them all.

In the past week the turkey hen walked off with her poults, two families of wrens flew off, the green and purple swallows celebrated the way they do, all, students and teachers, flying around in a cloud of swoops and dives, and there is a noticeably larger number of white-crowned sparrows on the fence line.

The barn owl is still sitting on eggs, that is if she has eggs up in the nesting box, and that is if it is not a he. Whatever sex, I suspect it is the reason we found a large pile of feathers in a back paddock the other day. Feathers large enough and of the right colors to be those of a small falcon. I have cleaned falcon talons out of that nesting box in years passed.

And just today, as I was driving into town, I gathered there must be something dead down by the river.

Probably a fish.

I'm thinking about going fishing this weekend.