Friday, May 25, 2007

Wild Kingdom...in the comfort of my backyard

This is the time of year that dead birds show up in my yard. In the past week, I've had three birds turn up in my yard: a chick, a fledgling and an adult. Tonight, I'm on the phone with my mom. I see a mama bird fly by with something quite large in her beak. I hear her drop it off by a tree. It was a dead chick. Crazy, eh? I had no idea that they could carry anything so large. It was creepy, somewhat sad and most of all, I'm glad Kidlet didn't notice the Darwinian action going on in the vicinity of her tea party.

This all being said, I think I'm turning into a bird geek. Tonight, I i.d.'d a black throated sparrow. I always just thought they were chickadees. Nope.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Awww..poor chick. So, do momma birds carry their dead baby chicks out of their own nests? Can you imagine??

Rebecca said...

wow. i can't believe you have all those dead birds cropping up in your yard. they must sense something special about your plot of land. a black throated sparrow? don't think i've ever seen one. that's a great one to add to your list.

Ani said...

Get this...since I had this lovely encounter, my pointer, Nora, killed a bird right in front of us last night. At least she finished the job, unlike our herding dog, Kiko, who likes to leave the actual killing for me.