A couple of years ago I penned in this column that my wife Pat and I certainly wouldn’t be considered any type of bird watchers. That is our knowledge of all the various types of birds is somewhat limited.
We had just experienced a historic, major winter snowstorm. Prior to that storm hitting the area and the state, I picked up a bag of wild bird seed.
It was the first time in my over 70 years on this earth that I had even thought about buying a bag of bird seed. But with that storm approaching, we thought it would be a good idea to pay a little more attention to the birds.
Before that, tossing out bread crumbs and that sort of thing fairly often, particularly when it’s pretty cold or wet and cold weather, was the extent of our feeding the birds.
My purchase of 20 pounds of bird seed that day has led to my buying it often enough so that we keep a bag in the garage most all the time.
With forecasters predicting what could be some more nasty weather this week, I went last Saturday and picked up more bird seed.
We’re not experts when it comes to having knowledge of the different types of birds that are around our yard. An expert or dedicated bird watcher would know them.
We are familiar with sparrows, robins, cardinals, doves, bluejays, crows, hawks, owls, and what to us are black birds.
There are others that frequent the yard from time to time, but the little sparrows, cardinals and robins were our chief concerns.
A little while after I got up last Sunday, I looked out and saw three squirrels, a dove and a sparrow enjoying the seed I had tossed out the previous day.
By later Sunday afternoon, there was a mixture of sparrows, cardinals, doves and others. I put some more seed out Sunday evening about 30 minutes before dark.
By the time I got back in the house, several had flocked to those areas and they ate until dark.
Shortly after I got up around 6:30 Monday morning, I looked outside and already the birds were busy eating away. In a little bit a squirrel joined them and then a crow.
Pat mentioned that I might want to toss out some more feed for them as the winter mix was already in the metro area headed our way. So I did.
Another wave was forecasted to come in Monday evening into Tuesday morning.
The cold and wet was expected to last through Wednesday some time so I was figuring on putting out more seed even probably Tuesday.
We still aren’t bird watchers by any means, but we have more appreciation for them since we started this a couple years ago. It’s gratifying to know we’ve helped the birds and other species.