Elder offspring: I think at recess I might start a bird watching club.
Dr. Free-Ride: You’ll have to be careful with it.
Elder offspring: Huh?
Dr. Free-Ride: When you swing it, make sure you don’t hit any kids or birds, and don’t break the lens at the end.
Elder offspring: Not that kind of club! (groans in exasperation)
Dr. Free-Ride: Finally, I have my revenge for some of those jokes you’ve been telling me!
Elder offpring: Did you know that a house wren can make a nest in a shoe?
Younger offspring: Really?
Elder offpsring: In an old shoe.
Dr. Free-Ride: I bet a house wren could nest in a new shoe if it got ahold of one.
Elder offpring: There’s another bird that makes a nest that’s a huge pile of branches. I’ll give you a hint: it’s a country bird.
Dr. Free-Ride: A turkey?
Elder offspring: No, this country!
Younger offspring: An eagle!
Elder offspring: That’s right!
Younger offspring: I like robins.
Elder offspring: We should plant a cherry tree in our back yard so robins can nest in it.
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: Hmm…
Younger offspring: I will gather lots of sticks and use some tape to hold them together to build nests and put them in trees so birds can lay eggs in them.
Dr. Free-Ride: You know that most birds build their own nests, right?
Younger offspring: Yeah, but I want to build them nests so they won’t have to work so hard. And I’ll also find worms for them to eat.
Dr. Free-Ride: Don’t you think it might be a problem if you do too much work for the birds?
Younger offspring: Why?
Dr. Free-Ride: They might get used to you doing all the work for them. Just imagine, you’re trying to sleep and they come tap-tap-tapping on your window saying, “Hey, where are our worms?!”
Younger offpring: They wouldn’t do that! It’s OK to do their work for them. They won’t forget how to do it themselves.
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half: It’s time to get ready for bed, birdwatchers.
Elder offspring: You need to turn our pajamas right-side out.
Younger offspring: Yeah, and put toothpaste on our toothbrushes.
Dr. Free-Ride: Those birds would be tapping for their worms alright …
* * * * *
The Sprogs Recommend:
A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins, Illustrated by Lizzy Rockwell.
Bird watching is the number one choice of answers given by east bay mushroom hunters to the question “What are you doing out here?” I’m all for it. Perhaps it will improve the deception if only I take sprog number one into the woods.
Good luck when they get old enough to make friends with the local wildlife! (“Honey, that’s not a dog….”)
I can hear cardinals today. They are shy about coming to the feeder by the house. The goldfinches are starting to go for the gold. Changing out a complete set of feathers twice a year seems like a lot of work.
There are also mourning doves, house finches, snowbirds, crows, sparrows, chickadees, and a Cooper’s hawk. No one seems too concerned about the hawk. He may be vegetarian.
Philosophers could learn from sparrows.
Our recent discussion while waiting for the school bus involved whether birds can understand people-speak and whether people can understand bird-speak. I told the sprog about a recent article in SCIENCE about how chickadees use different call lengths to warn each other about predators vs. non-predators, so he started wondering whether they were speaking to each other in whole sentences like “Watch out, there is that hungry cat!” or “Gosh, here comes that nice boy who tries to imitate our voices.” and which one was the longer bird sentence. Makes you really appreciate how the brains of children work, doesn’t it?