Just Thinkin’
Things change. Around our home the largest change is my youngest son, Mike, and my greatgrandson, Dason, installed a bird feeder in the Azalea bed, under the shade of a large Japanese Maple, just beyond the railing of our front porch. A bird bath was placed by the brick pillar on the porch’s northwest corner. I can sit in my living room chair and watch the activity. And there is activity!
In my line-of-sight, from chair to bird feeder is a rather traditional wind chime. It has a weight dangling between four aluminum tubes of varying lengths. The wind sail is a Cardinal-sized copper bird.
Now I don’t believe any of its creators envisioned the drama that would play out on this stage. But fill the feeder with seeds and birds, sparrows and few larger birds, will begin to fly in.
Now I’m not certain whether it was the seeds or the birds that attracted the squirrel. I am certain as what he is now after. The first time I saw this squirrel it simply sat on a limb in the Japanese Maple and scouted out the new attraction.
He first made for the seeds that fell to the ground uneaten. I thought, “Good choice.”
A breeze rustled the chimes. The cooper bird fluttered in the breeze. The squirrel hurried back onto the limb, stretched out flat and eyed the bird that seemed to hover above the porch rail and bending back toward the feeder. The squirrel quickly moved down on the rail, again stretching his length out flat on the rail, eyes measuring the cooper bird. I felt the squirrel was attempting to determine the bird’s intent.
After a couple of days, I came to the conclusion that the squirrel believed the cooper wind sail bird was real and that its sole mission in life was to taunt him. The squirrel would lean out over the limb and seem to be measuring the distance of the jump. He would then return to the rail and stretch himself up full length toward the dangling bird. He was thinking.
Yes, it was about this time I decided this must be a male squirrel. Finally, after a couple of days, he attempted to jump up from the rail. He missed short and fell to the ground scattering the collected seeds. A few hours later I saw him sail off the limb, paws outstretched, he still came up short. Over the pursuing days, I saw him make several other similar attempts. Now he just lays on the rail or in a limb but makes no effort to jump.
Remember Edison and his light bulb? He hadn’t failed. He just knew 10,000 ways that didn’t work. Likewise, my squirrel has discovered many ways that won’t catch an artificial bird. I do believe he is still thinking.
I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. – Franklin D. Roosevelt 620.583.7418
