JOURNAL 4: Animals
I've been bragging about having at least seven pair of cardinals who visit my bird feeders. It’s gorgeous when they’re all there at one time. Like someone has decorated the shrubbery with red ornaments. I get teased about bird watching being an old fogie activity, but I like it. It's soothing.
The difference in behavior between different kinds of birds is interesting. One morning, as I was glancing out at the inch of snow that had appeared during the night, a male cardinal landed on one of the open feeders. I hadn’t been outside to brush away the snow from the food yet, and he was sitting there like he was wondering where breakfast was. He left without it. Then a junco landed. That little cutie had no doubt about where his meal was, and immediately began digging and fluffing the snow away from the sunflower seed.
In addition to the sunflower seed, thistle seed, cracked corn, and suet, I started putting out a handful of peanuts in the shell each morning to see if anyone likes them. The first morning was amazing. By the time I got back in the house and took off my coat, the blue jays who visit the feeders infrequently were already swooping down to get them. Now the peanuts are usually gone within 15-30 minutes after I put them out. I think it’s causing at least one jay serious stress though. He has trouble deciding which peanut he wants to take. The record I’ve seen was when he picked up and put down peanuts 10 times before he finally made a decision and flew off with one of them.
I wonder if there's an etiquette book for dogs.
Have you noticed that visiting dogs do not bark; it's
the dogs on home territory that raise a ruckus. When
strays visit Riley on the other side of the fence,
Riley barks up a storm. However, when I take Riley for
a walk, it's the dogs whose yards we pass who start yapping and Riley remains silent.
I don't want to say my animals and I are in a rut, but the back screen door has proved it.
Sometimes when I let Riley outside, he's already at a full gallop by the time he goes through the doorway. One evening when I opened the door, we found the screen door hadn't latched and was open. So there was the backyard! Instead of thundering on out, Riley came to a screeching halt. Without the need for a race to see if I could open the screen door before he went through it, he didn't know what to do.
So I closed the screen door--so that I could open it for him.
Birdwatching is one of those gentle joys no matter what the season. The friendliness of the chickadees; the wide-eyed titmice; the perpetually upside-down nuthatches; the loud-mouthed blue jays; the waddling doves; the brewer's blackbirds' enthusiastic baths...well I suppose you get the picture.
But spring. Ahh, spring and the babies. The mottled little cardinal with the tousled crest. The downy woodpecker concentrating so hard on pecking a seed cake you can feel her intensity. The unsteady sparrow who lands on the wire fence and almost does a loop-de-loop. The scruffy young'uns, so huge with feathers you don't realize they're babies until you see their mouths eagerly opening when a harried parent appears to deposit food in it.
I know it's a myth that cats dislike water. I've had cats before who are fascinated and eager to play with dripping faucets. But Tucker takes it to extremes...he loves water. He paddles in the water dishes.
I don't mean a little gentle splashing with his paw; I mean digging in and trying to create a tidal wave. At which he is very proficient judging by the fact that even if the wet walls and floor didn't give away what he'd been doing, with the length of the house separating us, I can hear him sloshing. When he's done playing, he then generally stands there in the water dish and has a drink.
I suppose I should expect to walk in some day and find him doing the breast stroke in Riley's dish.
Watching Riley and Tucker together really makes me wish I had a video camera. Those times when Tucker lays on a shelf or chair and bats Riley's ears and Riley dances around with a goofy grin on his face would make cute film. Or the times Tucker nonchalantly strolls underneath Riley, evidently giving it no more thought than walking under a piece of furniture. The disparity in their sizes (Riley being, oh, maybe 11 times larger than Tucker) always makes me smile when Riley bends his head to sniff Tucker, and Tuck tips his head back to return the sniff.
Tucker has a habit of sprawling on the floor in the center of a room and expecting traffic to flow around him, showing absolutely no fear of a large dog galloping in his direction. Riley obligingly swerves. Tuck is a little more leery of me, since I have demonstrated pretty conclusively that my night vision does not spot a cat lolling on the floor and that I cannot see through a load of laundry in my arms.
25 Feb 00
