Who Is Eating The Thistle Seed and Other Mysteries

Late this summer, I put some thistle seed up for the goldfinches who inhabit the neighborhood. The first location wasn't good and I finally found a spot in the woods down by the slough where I figured they could find it. And then of course, I forgot it.

A few weeks ago, it occured to me to hike down the hill and bring in the seed, except that 2/3 of it is gone. Something, a bird undoubtedly, is eating it. Very cool, except I haven't seen anything on the thistle feeder. Hmmmm. We have lots of bird activity back there, because we have a suet feeder which is VERY popular, and another bird (and squirrel) feeder, and water that's kept above freezing. It's a birdie paradise. Another feeder in front is popular with cardinals, chickadees,nuthatches,tufted titmice and their ilk.

Thisbe the younger more sensitive cat is really interested in the birds in front and bawls to go out all the time. Of course if the UPS man comes, she has hysterics.

I am not a true "birder" , but I have observed that the birds of winter are much more polite and get along better than the birds of summer. Many's the time I seen a chickadee take one seed and fly off, then come back and get one more seed. Nothing greedy like the sparrows who perch on the feeder from morning to night.

We have a very cute little red squirrel who can climb all the way down into the feeder and help himself. Of course, squirrels would never ever take just one seed.

I have 6 short stories to write, one taken from life and the others from newspaper clippings. Several of them are from the point of view of an animal. Easy to get away with in a short story, although Watership Down and several later novels had animal points of view. I wrote a series of poems once, about creatures living in the Sonora Desert. Of all the poems I wrote, those were the easiest to publish.

I've been accepted into the "Amazon shorts" program, and hope to put some of the weirder animal stuff out there for $.49 a pop. Web page languishing. Me languishing. Puzzling over who is eating the thistle seed and other stuff.

Onward,

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