A morning in the life of the critters

David Sherman

The crow’s pissed. Whether because we were away for a time or because we had come back is unclear, but he's not happy. He screams from an invisible perch. Like a metronome. Every three seconds. “Squawk!” From dawn to dusk, day after day, “Squawk.” He was telling me off this morning.

Maybe he was protecting his nest. Whether he was telling his murder, “They’re back!” is unclear. But he didn’t shut up for two weeks. One pissed crow. And they’re usually amiable visitors, checking out the banquet we leave for our avian friends but they’ve boycotted us this spring. Leaving during the winter insulted them.

Same cannot be said for our neighbour’s exotic chickens. If your familiarity with Gallus gallus domesticus is about them on a plate or Foghorn Leghorn, you may not know of the exotic relatives that sport multiple colours and sizes. Our neighbour has a brood of multi-coloured egg providers, including one hefty black and white mother. They’re free range until bedtime when they head for the coop. Free range appears to mean coming to our place to feed on what had been left for the denizens of the tree tops.

These girls are far from shy and patrol our yard, digging and pecking the goodies to be found under last autumn’s bounty of dried, dead leaves. They come running for breakfast like dogs when we head outside with handfuls of seeds to feed the birds. Galloping would be more accurate. They’re not much on gratitude or even acknowledgement.

There are eight of them and they travel in a pack like a street gang and will gobble (I couldn’t resist) anything you lay down without a simple thank you or “hello, how are you?”

Probably doesn’t help that I picture them fried and crispy but it’s a man-eat-chicken kind of world and what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

Big chickens visits do not sit well with a couple of chickadees who make themselves at home at our place. They bathe together in the bird bath on the railing and often pivot to the side of the house where a shelf on a maple tree holds a smorgasbord of seed for them. The invading chickens had them perplexed, either zapping from branch to branch in front of our window, telling us, no doubt, “Can you get them outta here, this is our joint?” or they would take up post, one at a time, on the hummingbird feeder we had hung, and watch, obviously disgruntled.

Hummingbirds usually return from their winter haunts in Central America or Mexico the end of May but some leave early to beat the rush. They arrive hungry, not having had the pleasure of flying while eating an Air Canada sandwich with their knees jammed into their chin. They’re hungrier for it but less weary.

They tried to negotiate rights to their feeder with the chickadees but to no avail. They flitted and buzzed but the chickadees are intransigent. So the hummingbird gave the chickadee the beak and zapped around to the front of the house where he knew there was another feeder, unattended. He’s been here before.

Three squadrons of Canada geese were flying under the clouds. Maybe a few hundred. Reminded me of war movies. Hear ‘em before you see ‘em. Hummingbirds watched, envying their wing size. Life’s a breeze when you can flap those huge suckers. Juncos, who have just crossed the U.S. border from the southern U.S., were envious too. What were the geese squawking about? They were big and plump and with those wings and amount of fat, any bird can fly to Japan or Siberia.

Chickadees and Goldfinches were snickering. They don’t get a ticket to get out of town for winter. They freeze along with the rest of us. Migrating thousands of kilometres is for fools, birds without balls. Chickenshits.

Then the chickadees surveyed the chickens unhappily but were more distraught when the goldfinches appeared, also in a pair. There was much fluttering of feathers and zapping back and forth – part of the negotiation process – but the chickadees came to terms with the finches. The agreement was cordial. No one pulled a knife or threw a fist. The finches took over the perch on the hummingbird feeder. The chickadees headed for the seed shelf.

The finches were disturbed their food supply was being filched by the chickens and also retreated and headed for the bath. This opened the way for the juncos who didn’t care a whit about the chickens or anything else, except for the seeds dropped on the tree shelf which made the chickadees pack and leave again. They were having a rough morning.

The juncos sniffed the air and dive bombed for a quick snack of seeds, maybe took a few back to bury for a bed time snack. I think they like Jimmy Kimmel.

This was insignificant to the voles or moles that are living underneath the birds’ playground. They’ve excavated a punch-board of holes, the size of an infant’s coiled fist, living their own version of subterranean blues, making themselves at home.

Their lair’s a black fly free zone. The little bastards have just arrived with the week’s warmth, taking pieces of us and visitors, some more than others. They’re picky, literally and figuratively.

Meanwhile the squirrels, black and tan, were immune to the goings on over their head and scrambled for every seed and ran back and forth into the trees to their hidden cache, ignoring birds and chickens. Not their business at all.

If any of this mattered to the fawn that showed up, he or she wasn’t talking. It looked hungry and skinny and had that WTF look. Sniffing, nibbling, nervous. He saw me through the kitchen window, watching him. He watched back, wondering if I was edible and how hard would it be to jump through the glass and bring me down. Its ears went up and back, alert to the possibility I might leap through the window and tackle him.

Once he or she figured out I was too bony to bother, Reisa went out and tossed him some carrots. He appraised her culinary potential and figured carrots were preferable to messing with her, a wise move I’d say. He or she slowly let its nose take it to one carrot after another.

Then mom leaped out of the woods and stopped, white tail on high alert. Mother was more than annoyed, a little freaked. She had obviously discovered the trail she used last year has now been dynamited and excavated to build a home or two. Her path by our house and into the woods up the hill is now to be the foundation of someone’s dream home. Her mind was blown ’cause she was certain it had been a straight path into the higher woods just a while back. Fine the way it was. She needed a drink and took off with the kid. Didn’t ask for a carrot.

With the birds bathing, the squirrels racing, the hummingbirds humming, the chickens pecking, finishing breakfast, I went to do the same.