More about birds

I finally had to clean out and refill my bird feeder. We have been ‘discovered’ by little yellow birds of unknown (to me) pedigree and they have each seemingly enjoyed our ‘offering’ and, presumably, come back for more. I have no idea, of course, how many of the little buggers there have been – vs. how many times the same one comes – and nor do I know how much one little yellow bird eats in a day. But altogether, it seems like the seeds have lasted a long time. I mean, I put the feeder up in mid-April!

So I’m guessing that birds don’t rely on a single source of food, no matter how plentiful it may seem. Rather than gorging at my feeder and then kicking back the rest of the day, these guys must nibble here, nibble there, always working on new possibilities. Which is good to know, because right now the feeder is empty and drying out in the sun, and if any of them came limping in on their last legs, so to speak, they’d be disappointed. Good to know that they aren’t really counting on just me.

This seems like good decision-making to me; leaving me to wonder about the last little quail baby that was hatched on my sister’s porch – one little guy who broke through his shell after all the other excitement was over and came into the world in an already-empty nest. Rather than waiting around, he hopped to it and dashed off by himself to seek his fortune. Bad decision-making there, I’d say.

In the family discussion about the quail eggs, we heard that there was a nest on my brother’s back porch as well. Only in this case, when they put out some seeds and water for him, the little one promptly drowned in the bowl. (I am, possibly, taking 'literature liberties' with this story that I only got second- or third-hand.)

Maybe ‘decision-making’ is too strong a case to make here?