Watch those shrikes! (Feb 5/20)

Birdbrain conversing with birdbrain

                                    by Robert LaFrance

            I think I will have to have a talk with the birds around this neck of the woods. They can’t seem to make up their minds whether they want to chow down at my bird feeder or somebody else’s.

            A few minutes ago I was in the kitchen and looked out to see half a dozen purple finches and not another bird in the big wide area in front of our house. The finches were happily filling their bills with sunflower seeds from the same bird feeder where yesterday chickadees and American goldfinches where crowding and elbowing each other for a turn at the table.

            The day before that, it was chickadees, true, but they had been joined by slate-coloured juncos and a couple of California Condors. Just kidding, testing to see if you were paying attention.

            I wouldn’t mind hearing from any of my readers who know a thing or two about birds, because this birding (it used to be called bird-watching) is a mystery to me, but I do know that hummingbirds and ruffed grouse (partridges) are not likely to be seen at my bird feeder and I sure hope that shrike stays clear away.

            It was probably about a dozen years ago when I looked out our living room window and saw an unknown bird sitting on one of my metal fenceposts. I took a telephoto picture of it and emailed it to Murray Watters in Perth. He knows everything about birds except perhaps the mating habits of the Mombassa Canary.

            Within minutes my phone was ringing. `Bob, get rid of that bird as fast as you can, preferably with an elephant gun. That’s a shrike! They will rip apart a small bird, like a chickadee, and hang it on a bush or stake to eat later. Blast it!”

            I couldn’t find my elephant gun but at that time I had the wildest border collie known to the human race. I called her into the house and into the living room where I lifted her up to the window. She stiffened into a piece of steel and when I let her out the porch door she zoomed toward that killer creature and actually caught one of the bird’s claws in her mouth.

            Not quite enough though. The bird let out one Mother-Mary of a screech and headed west toward Mars Hill Mountain. Within minutes that shrike was an American.

            I should add that this is a true story. Look up the name shrike on Google. I even have my picture of the grey and black bird somewhere among the 300 gigbytes of photos that adorn my computer’s hard drive.

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            I often take long walks among the hills of the Scotch Colony and often notice the detritus people fling out of their vehicle windows as they gently drive along on sight-seeing jaunts. It was only recently that I started taking plastic bags along with to pretend I care about the environment.

            This morning I took six grocery bags and was nonplussed to find that all six were full of trash before I got to the foot of Manse Hill. This is less than one kilometre; keep in mind that this is winter and much of the trash was hidden under snow and snowbanks. I called my wife to see if she would drive down and pick me up and bring more bags. She said she was washing her hair and couldn’t possibly go outside for four hours. “Just kidding,” she said.

            I continued on my journey with four black garbage bags in tow. A lot of people are thinking right now     that I must have gone crazy in the night, but I am merely doing my bit to replace the late Richard Elliott who, every day though stricken with terminal cancer, used to walk these roads starting any time after 5:00 am to pick up trash and a few returnables.

            What do people throw into the ditch and why, when there are garbage cans and dumpsters all over the place? Trucks come every week to pick up trash right at the ends of our driveways, yet people still throw trash out their vehicle windows.

            I suppose the first words that come to the readers’ minds are “Tim Hortons”, but I know from experience that only a tiny percentage of paper cups, paper plates and cardboard food containers are from Tim Hortons. It’s more of a mixture so we must be fair.

            Beer cans are popular, but at least there is a 5-cent gift waiting for us when we take the empties back. We take ours to the food bank in Andover and are happy to contribute to the cost of paying the building’s hydro bill.

            I don’t find many wine bottles and I can truthfully say that I have never found, in any ditch from here to Campbell River, BC, an empty Dom Perignon bottle. That particular beverage costs about $500 an ounce. The rest of the trash I find is just trash.

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            In this last item, I should explain that my acquaintance Elroy Favore is no longer late. In my mid-January column I referred to “the late Elroy Favore” and mentioned that I missed him severely because he used to deliver my organic potatoes right to my door.

            Well folks, he’s not late. I was misinformed. At least he’s not late in the sense that he’s “passed” as people say now. Indeed, he is quite early. Ironically I just saw him at Tim Hortons and he took a lot of trouble to correct my incorrect assumption. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, he said: “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

            However, he said it in such a snarky and rude way that I rather wished the reports had not been quite so exaggerated.
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