Many speak of cats and dogs being spoiled in The Villages. It is my belief that you need to include birds as well. Bird feeders run amuck here. The Blonde in the house is right there with everyone else. We have this huge four poster pole in the back with a “squirrel proof” feeder on it. It also hangs two flower pots and a sack full of nyjer seeds for finches – which pay no attention to it.
Now the last place we lived the goldfinches loved it. They were all over the sack and we had a hard time keeping up with them. We also had a resident hawk. Since the top of our four poster is pretty high, he would swoop down and rest on it while surveying his domain. One thing that somewhat flabbergasted me about this particular hawk was his relationship with squirrels!
I have a YouTube video of this hawk chasing a poor hapless squirrel all over the place until he finally escapes in a hollow tree – just barely getting his butt in before the hawk gets there. In person at another house in the northern part of The Villages where we lived I saw a hawk take off faster than light trying to pick a squirrel off the side of a tree. That squirrel ducked behind the tree just in time.
However, the hawk on top of our post was more benevolent. I was looking out one day when a squirrel started skipping across the yard. The hawk looked down with much distain and paid no attention to it. About fifteen minutes later, I looked out again, and the hawk was on the ground right by a tree. While he was sitting there a squirrel came down the tree right in front of him and skipped across the yard and continues his unbothered way.
It is a sad tale really as it shows that the hawk came from a poor family. They quite obviously had no computer and thus the hawk never saw any You Tube videos and so did not know he was to chase and eat squirrels. This was in eastern Florida and they do say in those parts that squirrels are known to pull out computer plugs from hawk’s nests. Squirrels are bright!
We have no hawks in our present locale. What we do have is an abundance of blackbirds. I do not mind paying fabulous amounts for bird seed assuming the birds eat them. Blackbirds do eat some, but mostly they scatter the seed on the ground where some of it gets eaten by other birds. A good deal of it though grows up in weeds which do not look good – at least to a member of womankind that I know.
Blackbirds are pretty big and the smaller birds do not come when they are around, which is most of the time. Do not worry though as I have a plan for them. I count them when they come and as soon as there are four and twenty it will be “pie time”. Well that is my thought, but most likely it is one of those things that are not on the politically correct menu. It is a good thing that the King is not around now.
Since I can’t do that, I will just relax and have another piece of pie that I know is on the list. That is the Blonde’s key lime pie. She makes it by using the rolling pin on graham crackers, and then patting it somehow into a pie plate. She then fills it with a tart filling made with key lime juice and covers it with fresh whipped cream. With that around who cares about some dopey blackbirds?
Barry Evans is a Villager.