A busy moment at the backyard bird bath.
If you’re bored now and then, you need a harmless diversion. Like, for instance, a bird bath in your yard.
Unlike the news about politics or the national debt, a bird bath does not add to your worry about the future of your town, state or country.
Unlike cable and a streaming service, a bird bath is free. (Once you’ve paid for the bowl, anyway, which in my case was many years ago.)
And unlike what happens in some scripted TV shows, especially those you’ve seen before, you never know who’s going to show up next.
If you’re looking for some more substantial benefit, consider what you might learn. Especially if you get yourself a bird book that helps you identify at least some of the visitors.
There will be days when you wonder what kind of bird showed up. And then you look it up and find it was a bushtit. Not just one, but a flock of bushtits.
See? You learned something. So this day was not a total waste. (hh)
This big guy scared all the other customers away.
Thank you Hasso,
I have enjoyed the show from a birdbath while sipping my morning coffee.
You can be pleasently surprised and it starts the day off right.
It’s great that you take the time to enjoy what can happen in a birdbath.
Here’s wishing you many more days of enjoyment and learning!
Hasso, check out the Merlin bird ID app. It ID’s birds by sound. Its great entertainment, and helps researchers out.
When I lived in Lebanon, we had what you could call a bird sanctuary with shelter and food we provided year round. It was the perfect place with shrubs and trees and a covered gazebo type stand I built to hang the feeders. Birds would often sit on the perches I made underneath it and ride out storms, their food supply close at hand.
The book I used to identify was Stan Tekiela’s ‘Birds of Oregon Field Guide. We had 34 different varieties show up over 15 years. My favorite was the always present and theatrical black-capped chickadee, who incidently likes to hangout with the bushtits when they arrive. Birding is a great hobby. Thanks for the post, Hasso.
Hummingbirds are quite fascinating to watch, too. Besides being beautiful and varied, you can hang up two feeders and watch how they interact. If you only hang one, you will probably see them fight. The show never gets old.
The simple things like this are always the most joy and good for the soul. Your birdbath was a wise investment way beyond most things and the reward is something that money cannot buy.
My daughter is manager of Wildbirds Unlimited in Bend and thoroughly enjoys it. They have a store in Corvallis so anyone that loves birds should check it out. They are a nationwide retail store and have a great website where you can learn all about so many things to do with birds. Would be well worth you checking it out. We have many birds here in Millersburg that we enjoy watching. Our hummingbird feeder is the best and a few years ago a nest was built on the christmas light strings on our porch so we got to see that whole process of mama bird sitting on eggs until they flew away. Loved it.