Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird? – David Attenborough, British broadcaster and biologist (1926-)

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all. – E. O. Wilson, founder of sociobiology; Birmingham, AL (1929-2021)

It’s hard to say exactly what’s going on with the weather this summer. The air is steamy. Grasses and fields should be dry, dying, with deep earthen cracks. The days get hot, thunderstorms full of flashing lightning and rolling thunder come and scare the daylights out of Wilhelmina, the cat. Wilhelmina hides under furniture, particularly the couch, until she’s sure the coast is clear. Should she be outside when thunder rolls, she’ll be found safely under the house and return whenever she gets good and ready as cats do. Enough about Wilhelmina and more about the birds of the season.

Even though birds have sources of food during our summers I still like to put out birdseed so I can observe the birds from the breakfast nook. There’s seed in the fields and bugs everywhere but feeders bring birds where I can observe them. For months I have watched what I believe must have been a straggler from the Indigo Bunting migration. Every year we have Indigo Buntings but they do not stay long before they move on. This year one male Indigo Bunting visits the bird feeders daily. The female Indigo Bunting does not have the brilliant blue-teal coloring of the male. She’s rather a drab brown. She could be here as well. I can’t be certain identifying a female as easily as one could the gorgeous color of the male. According to a National Audubon Society book on birds, even the male is not actually blue but black. It is the angle of the sunlight causing him to look a brilliant turquoise blue. There are two birdbaths where the birds come to drink and splash the dust away. 

We attract tufted titmouse, wrens, and chickadees. Mourning doves drop in with a plop. They are too heavy to be feeding on the bird feeders so they scavenge the ground looking for fallen seed. They are also not so friendly to other birds. Across the world doves are considered a bird of peace. Perhaps the honor came from the Biblical story of Noah and the Ark releasing the dove. Doves are also depicted in paintings. Picasso drew a white dove when asked to create a poster for the World Peace Congress held in Paris in 1949. At the Olympic Games doves were released as a “festival of peace.” Later on, they decided to release balloons in the form of a dove rather than real doves.

Doves and pigeons are of the same bird family though I don’t think I’ve ever entertained a pigeon in the sunny south. Once I was gifted with a 50-pound bag of wheat seed. I scattered the seed in the gravel driveway. Doves often swallow grit and fine gravel for digestion. They are mostly seed eaters and like to feed on the ground thus the visits to our fallen seed beneath the birdfeeders.

Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].