Hi, Hi, Birdie

As a grown-up, I’ve lived in houses in Shawnee, Kansas City, north Overland Park, and Lake Quivira.  As an even older grown-up, I’ve lived in Kansas City in two different condos, one in midtown (Crown Center) where the 25th floor did not attract much wildlife and one on the Plaza.  This last location I share with Cute, who it turns out, is a bird lover.,

I just saw an Instagram that said every retired person is required to have one of six hobbies and first one on the list is bird watching. I did not know this.

The first inkling of Cute's proclivity is when a finch couple, he prettier than she, started checking out our north balcony.  At the time, there was one lonely "fir" tree in a pot.  The finches came daily and soon we noticed that they were building a nest in the tree.  I was positive they would not complete construction.

Why, you ask. 

Because I thought they’d notice that the tree was plastic.

They didn’t and kept on building in this semi-real-life looking plastic tree, and soon there were three eggs, all of which have hatched.  Every time we step out on that balcony, mom or dad flies away. However it soon returns to the railing to squawk at us or rather to peep frantically at us.  It makes us feel guilty so we leave them undesturbed and moved to our south balcony.

Cute had earlier commented to me that he sometimes saw a mourning dove on that balcony. None of the hummingbirds he’s trying desperately to attract by moving a red begonia near the feeder or faithfully changing their sweet water often has worked. Still he glances out quite frequently to see if there’s any propeller action occuring.

None! But the doves have built a rickety, ramshackle nest on the baker’s rack and Cute has been busy learning factoids about doves: Usually two eggs per nest, several broods per year, the male sits on the nest during the day while the female takes on night duty.  Worst fact: they return to the same location to re-bird every year. I’ll spare you the rest of the nest story but it does appear that a cactus makes for good protection. 

Yesterday k when Cute stepped out to check on the hummingbird feeder, the bird jumped off the nest and promptly flew into the sliding glass door, resulting in an abrupt stop, and fall, before he flew off.

What I’ve learned from all this is that “bird brain” is a term with some credibility and that being retired is, just as you’ve thought from our other blogs, one adventure after another. 

No hummingbird yet.