I was out there to meet the Queen. I’d been trying to get an audience with her for several weeks. But she’s a Royal and follows her own rules. I’m used to that.
Anybody out there? Hey Mr. Downy, are you hungry?
You see, almost every day I’d see, on Facebook, a photographer who calls herself the “Hand of Snacks” feeding a female cardinal along the boardwalk at my favorite park.
Well, at least one bird wants a snack!
Lots of birds come down to any number of hands filled with snacks at this park, but cardinals are famously shy. Quite stand-offish. So to see this female sitting in a hand regularly intrigued me. And I drove the 30+ minutes every week or so, hoping to get to meet her Majesty for myself. Oh, I’d see her – sitting in the scrub along the boardwalk. I’d offer a treat. She’d watch me. But she never showed any interest in getting to know me better. Week after week I’d leave disappointed.
They almost always go for the peanuts first.
This Wednesday, there she was, sitting among the twigs of a dogwood bush with her partner, the bright red Mr. Cardinal. And that morning she seemed interested in me. She moved out to the end of the branch and eyed me up and down. I stood still, gifts offered. She flew to the railing, quite a far bit away from me and eyed me some more.
She’s not too sure about this.
Clearly I was not her Hand of Snacks. I was an imposter. But she was hungry. But I was an imposter. Could she trust me? Would she trust me? She hopped along the railing to get a closer look. She looked up at me and then down at the snacks in my hand. I stood still, barely breathing.
Come on sweetie, it will be OK.
And then she reached out, her feet still firmly planted on the railing, she wasn’t going to actually stand on my hand, and grabbed an oiler seed, moving rapidly away from me to eat it. I stood still.
You have options, pick your favorite!
She hopped over again and helped herself to another treat, not moving so far away this time…and then she grabbed a peanut and with a slight nod to me, she flew back into the bushes to share it with her partner.
You’re such a good Queen, taking your partner the best peanut.
And the politely waiting chickadee hopped up onto my hand to see what she had left behind.
She’s off to share. Mr. Chickadee is waiting in line.
Now I can say I’ve met the Queen. And it was everything I knew it would be.
I’m sitting here watching my birds at our feeders. We have a lot of feeders, starting out with one we thought they could all share…then realizing that some birds aren’t sharers at heart.
Waiting his turn.
Now I fill 4 feeders every morning, and hope I can go the rest of the day without heading out to fill them again. But with the weather this week, all the wind and cold and snow, the birds were ravenous and I ended up out there more than once on each cold, nasty day.
Make room for one more!
Anyway, the year is winding down and I feel like I should be reflecting on 2022. But, in our family, it was a difficult year and one that might best be let go without any formality.
Grab a seed and go, little buddy, before that big woodpecker comes back!
Best, maybe, to anticipate next year. I am very hopeful about 2023.
It’s hard to wait your turn when you’ve got snow melting on your beak.
I’m hoping there are camping adventures waiting in the woods, perhaps even near a dark sky park.
A fluffy downy woodpecker checks out the inventory.
I am hopeful for clear warm summer nights when the moon is new, and wild stormy cloud filled skies during afternoon barn searches.
A hairy woodpecker wants to know who ate all the peanuts.
I’m hopeful for lush gardens of vibrant flowers filled with fat buzzing bees and the whisper of hummingbird wings.
A nuthatch keeps watch while grabbing a snack.
I’m hopeful for red ripe tomatoes warmed by the afternoon sun, and bluebirds nesting in their boxes way out in the yard.
Mr. Cardinal enjoys a peaceful lunch.
I’m hopeful for a long bike ride or two, and more than a couple kayak trips down a river or across a lake.
Mrs. Redbelly asks who failed to clean the snow off the suet?
I’m hopeful I’ll see Alabama again after too long away, that I’ll get to float again in the warm southern waters talking with neighbors and family until the sun slides down in a glorious sunset.
The bluejay is not known for waiting patiently.
And I’m hopeful I’ll get to see my Lake Michigan in all it’s moods a few times too, maybe even Lake Superior if I’m extra lucky.
The mourning dove is almost always the last bird in to eat.
I hope I’ll be able to roam further from home too, perhaps even to dark skies in other states. I’ve heard Michigan does not hold a monopoly on the stars.
Mr. Redbelly decides what his next snack should be.
And I’m hoping I’ll get to share it all with you. And maybe, just maybe if we’re exceptionally lucky, I’ll be able to share it with a new puppy.
A bit of peaceful coexistence.
But that’s a story that has to wait to be told.
Eating as fast as he can.
Meanwhile I’ll sit in my chair near the window and watch my birds as they devour their lunch and dream about another, happier, year.
Mrs. Cardinal eats her fill.
May you all have dreams for 2023, and may the best of those come true.
Anyway, I was reading Quaint Revival’s latest post about all the snow she’s getting over in Wisconsin, and she said it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas…which led her into thoughts about how those lyrics happened to be written and a request for someone to find out for her. Which, being a want-to-be librarian I felt compelled to do.
I think Santa is on some sort of exercise program.
She thought maybe the lyrics were written by Meredith Wilson in 1951 as he sat beside a pool, hopefully under warm skies. But Wikipedia says it probably was written in Yarmouth, and when I google that I can only find Yarmouth Maine, or Yarmouth British Columbia, neither of which sounds very warm, even in midsummer!
Looking for her Christmas gift. Or a peanut, whichever’s available.
But looking for this information did remind me that we played this very piece of holiday music at our recent concert, so I went to listen to it again. Well, actually, I went and listened to it for the first time. Music sounds very different when you’re sitting in the middle of the band than it does when sitting in the audience, and I haven’t taken time to listen to our concert until now. (I recommend listening to this with a good set of earphones…it sounds a LOT better with earbuds than just using your laptop speakers.)
Holiday music always makes things better.
Last Sunday I had a couple friends come for lunch and painting. Well, truthfully, they brought most of the lunch (roasted tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches) and most of their own painting supplies too. After we ate the yummy lunch we settled in to paint Christmas cards. It was so much fun to experiment together. Plus it increased my stock of cards waiting to be mailed out to unsuspecting friends and family. I should do this on a larger scale next year!
Seems like birds infiltrate all aspects of my life.
We have a little bit of snow, enough to make things look pretty, but not enough to interfere with driving. Not that I’m driving much. One of the benefits of retirement is not having to go out unless I want to. When it’s cold and snowing I rarely want to. And though I miss my Katie-girl soooo much, I am kind of glad to roll over in bed and go back to sleep in the dark early hours of these winter mornings.
“I used to put up with an awful lot, mama.”
Speaking of not traveling, we’re staying home this Christmas. We have had invites to holiday gatherings, but this year we just can’t quite make ourselves wander out. Twenty Twenty-two has been a long, hard year for us. Instead of going out this year I’ll fix some of the family mealtime favorites, and we’ll snuggle up on the couch to enjoy the quiet.
I look forward to seeing these guys every year.
Though it might not be entirely quiet. We’re going to have a houseguest for awhile, a little 10 year old doggie will be staying with us while his mom is visiting family out of town. We’ve practiced him being here without his mom a couple of times and I think he’s going to settle in, but he sure does love his mom.
“Does this peanut make my head look flat?”
I saw a movie trailer this morning for something staring Tom Hanks. There was a year, a long time ago, when my husband and I watched several movies, unusual for us, realizing later that all of them were Tom Hanks movies. You know, Castaway, Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan. This movie is called something like A Man called Otis. While I was watching the trailer something felt familiar…and then I remembered one of my favorite books, A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman, about an elderly man who’s quiet life is interrupted by a family that moves in next door. I think the movie is based on this book, and I think I really need to go see it. Maybe during the Christmas holiday week, as a gift from me to me.
Sometimes Christmas feels like this.
I did get out to feed the birds at Kensington this morning. A lot of the photos in this post are from that visit. I didn’t look at the weather, or even the temperature before I left home when it was still dark. By the time I got to the park the wind was blowing the snow sideways. Not surprisingly no one else was around.
“I don’t eat out of hands, lady. But if you’ve got a spare peanut I’d enjoy it.”
I went out to the boardwalk to see if I could entice the Queen to my hand, but she wasn’t having any of it. In fact none of the birds were willing to get too close, though they were happy enough to come to the railing if I’d leave my treats and back off.
“Not today, lady, not today.”
I wandered in the woods a little, to get out of the wind, and even there things were very quiet. And then I stood still and waited.
“My turn!” “NO IT’S NOT! It’s MY turn!”
And soon enough I heard the flutter of wings and saw, through the trees, the fast moving little bodies of hungry birds. So fun. Even though my hands were freezing and my toes were freezing I stood around out there for a long time.
“Hey Lady! I’m waiting patiently over here!”
I stood there just smiling and watching them, all puffed up against the cold.
“Puffing up helps you keep warm lady, you should try it.”
Merry Christmas to my little birds, and to all of you too. May you all enjoy this holiday season, in whatever way seems right for you this year.
Once in awhile I like to mess around with black and white images. Most of the time I look for stark images with clean lines and a big contrast between the darks and lights. Kind of ultra modern.
But I also like nature in black and white, so when I saw Cee’s challenge I went looking for something from my archives that would fit the bill. And, as you know, I have a LOT of bird images so I decided to pull this Sandhill crane from a visit just last month to my favorite bird park. It was all about the shadow when I took the image, and I think it’s the shadow that makes this a great black and white.
I hope you like it too! Thanks, Cee, for the challenge!
Change Is Hard 