Bird Brains

We have birds on the brain over here.

It started a few weeks ago, I think, when the Daisies and siblings went to the Audubon Center and saw some birds of prey--a peregrine falcon, a red-tailed hawk, plus a barn owl and a turkey vulture.  Sis bought a bird log in the shop, a kid's journal with spaces for drawings and details about bird encounters.  When she got home, she began to fill it out with the birds at the center.

The following Sunday at church, the RE classes went on a nature walk with a naturalist/bird expert.  They saw a mourning dove, a starling, and a cooper's hawk.  The hawk was eating and flew off with its bit of squirrel, to the kids' delight.  They also learned some bird calls (including the "nose" bird call, which is sounded through a pinched nose) and when certain birds begin waking (different ones at different hours between 4-8 a.m.).  Of course, all of this went in the bird log.  And then, after church, we played a new game:  hawk-and-squirrel tag.  I think you can imagine.

Sis now sees birds everywhere and dutifully puts them in her book:  Canadian geese, red-winged blackbird, seagull, swan, cardinal.  And she's talking birds with Gommie and Pop, who always have a bird story. like their recent spotting of a Ross's goose.

Of course, Mama and I have one other kind of winged creature on our mind, which is of course not a bird:  the bat in our belfry.  It has not resurfaced or reemerged, but there is proof in the attic that it wasn't a solitary visit.  So, the bat people will be coming to do an exclusion, which involves sealing up our roof anywhere there is a crevice wider than a pencil tip, and then the renovation people will come clean and restore the attic.  I guess that's our house project for 2012.

I think I like bird-watching better.