A Bird in the Hand

I once saw a chickadee eating from a baseball glove. The glove was on the hand of a friend. She had set up a sort of stick man and fed the birds from the glove attached to an arm stick. Later she held the glove and the chickadees gradually came.

Another friend tells me how he enticed the whiskey jacks. He put dog food on a small table outside. As many dog owners in the country are aware, whiskey jacks love pet food. My friend sat on a chair at some distance from the table. Gadually he moved the chair closer. Finally he was sitting at the table. Everything good comes in small steps. An arm on the table. An arm with an open hand with food in it. They hop right up. Now when he walks around his country property, he has to load his pockets with dog food.


The sad news is that few of us in town are lucky enough to have whiskey jacks come to our feeders. The good news is that the juncos, those weed seeding eating fiends, have arrived.