For the Birds

It is neither spring nor summer. It is always,

With towhees, finches, chickadees, California

quail wood does,

With wrens, sparrows, juncos, cedar waxwings,

flickers,

With Baltimore orioles, Michigan bobolinks,

And those birds forever dead.

The passenger pigeon, the great auk the

Carolina paraquet,

All birds  remembered, O never forgotten!

All in my yard, of a perpetual Sunday,

All morning, All morning.

THEODORE ROETHKE

On our front window some while ago, we put up this label we got with the Zen curtains Dwight installed on the two library windows facing our slate patio to prevent birds from flying into them. If you remember from an earlier post, a young hawk had crashed into one of these windows. Two volunteers from the Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue came and captured him. Once his shoulder bruise healed he was released back to our area.

We thought now "this home is for the birds" until . . . one recent Saturday morning I heard a mini (compared to the hawk) crash. YIKES! A golden crowned sparrow lay on the patio. He had flown into one of the glass double doors leading from our dining room to our patio. I picked him up and put him in the bird feeding tray thinking he might fly off . . . nada. So off to Native Songbird Care & Conservation we drove with the bird safely in a box with soft towels. The box was left in their depository where they receive "rescued" birds. Later I spoke with Veronica Bowers who owns and runs this important enterprise. She informed me that they would keep him (she verified that the bird who crashed into our glass window was a "he"). He did not have injuries that would require euthanasia. WHEW! Several weeks later when I called to check on him, Veronica told me she had released him since these birds were migrating North.

This morning I went out to the patio to take a picture of the double doors. As you can see from the picture above the glass reflects vegetation into which the golden crowned sparrow thought he was flying. The Zen curtains are also visible so no more bird crashes: "This Home is for the Birds".

Through this whole process of making this home for the birds, what could one do but