Bright Ideas

It wasn’t too long ago that Brice spotted a robin sitting in our apple tree. It wasn’t much longer before he saw another. Where are the chickadees that used to come before the robins? Maybe they will be coming soon.

Robins are nice. They make nests, mate, and lay little blue eggs in those nests. I don’t remember seeing juvenile robins, but I’ve seen lots of pieces of those eggs.

Shortly after the robins came the grackles, the black bird with iridescent heads that look green or blue as they turn their heads. I don’t like grackles; they chase off other birds I prefer.

Grackles also seem to really like corn, and we’ve certainly seen them helping themselves to our small sweet corn crop. Last fall, Brice noticed that a flock of them heading south had stopped in our ripe corn for a quick meal. He immediately ran them off and harvested the corn then and there. I’m always happy if we can harvest the sweet corn before the grackles do, beating them to the prize of our garden.

Another recent bird to sweep across the sky was the vulture. Bigger than anything else, and probably uglier, they gather nearby, flying around and landing high in trees. They started coming here a few years ago, and must have liked it, because they return, year after year.

Throughout the summer we see other birds, some of them just passing through. I miss the cardinals and blue jays common in Missouri. The Eagle used to have a reporter who kept track of visiting birds; I’m not as familiar with their names as she was.

Keep looking up and see what lands here.