Birds and Cats

When I sat down at my desk today to write I noticed that there were several slate colored juncos outside my window eating the seeds off weeds.  There is a dog run just outside my office window for my dogs Cricket, who can’t get along with other female dogs and Gus her companion, who is elderly and has a heart condition.  They have a doggie door to the run. 

 Back to the birds.  It struck me that the little birds were eating the seeds of some lambsquarter, a weed I had worked hard to remove from the dog run as it gets very tall and blocks my view.  A single small plant was left because it grew through a cinder block and was hard to remove.  They were also eating the seeds of some grass that grew close to the fence and had escaped the mower and weedwacker. 

 Those little birds were feasting on weeds, weeds that somehow managed to escape my efforts to control them.   There is a bird feeder in the front of the house and fields are only a few yards away.   If I hadn’t worked so hard to get rid of the weeds near the house however, these tiny grey birds would have entertained me more often just outside a window I spend a lot of time near. 

 Since the weeds were few, I decided to encourage the tiny birds by opening the window and tossing out some canary seed mixture I had collected from my canaries seed dishes when I refilled them.  They don’t eat all the seed and I generally throw the “waste” out under the bird feeder for the birds to pick through.  Now it’s outside my office window where it will probably attract mice instead of more tiny birds.  Cricket and Gus knew I threw something out there and they went out to check it over so the birds won’t be back for a while anyway.

 I bought a new bird feeder this week.  Our old one had been badly damaged by constant deer visits and the barn cat hanging from it as she tried to catch birds.  This is sturdy molded plastic in the shape of a white barn with cheerful red and green trim, very Christmasy.  The design is such that I think it will discourage deer and now that its colder maybe the cat won’t be hiding under the ramp waiting to pounce on birds so often.

 Until the stray cat moved here with her 5 kittens I always had dozens of birds at my feeders in front at all times.    The type and number of birds I see now has dropped off considerably.  We allowed the cat to move her family into the barn and we have been feeding them quite generously, so she no longer has a real need to hunt.  But being a hunting type cat at heart she continues to supplement their meals. 

 The cat was probably a pet before she was dumped but she is quite wild now, as are her kittens.  They hide in the hay in the barn and watch my every move.  I crack the tiny eggs from the frizzle chickens to give them, bring them table scraps and keep a full dish of dry cat food out for them  but they still won’t let me touch them or even get close.  They look plump and healthy and are so pretty but if I tried to cuddle them I know they would tear me up.  There are 5 of them and I hope they are all males!