Summer retrospective - #1: animals, backyard naturalists (2007-09-17)

(Originally posted on 17 September 2007.)

Giggles loves animals. Stuffed animals, plastic animals, pictures of animals, and even real animals. So when we arrived back home from Alberta at the end of July, it was lovely to see our wonderful backyard garden had started to attract more and more animals, expecially birds. The sunflowers, that were about 1.5 metres (5’) tall when I left in mid-July, had blossomed upwards and reached over 2.5 metres (8’)! The potted hibiscus were flowering, the fuchsia was in full bloom, the dogwood had spread upwards, the morning glory were covering the trellis, the anise hyssop and dill and other herbs were gorgeously profuse. And the tomatoes and cucumbers were starting to produce in abundance.

At the bird feeder we regularly see chickadees, house sparrows, and gold finches. A few weeks ago Giggles saw a hummingbird at the fuchsia; since then we’ve all seen it (or them) at the fuchsia, the morning glory, and a hummingbird feeder that Laoye hung up. This past weekend Giggles and I spotted a bluejay. She and Laolao spotted a cowbird on the neighbour’s roof. And of course, there are the ubiquitous crows. (They tend to visit the garbage cans more than the bird feeder!) Although the red-winged blackbirds don’t visit the bird feeder, we see and hear them down by the pond.

We hope to keep the birds coming to the feeder all fall and winter. It’s out at the edge of our deck and we have a good view of it from our dining room table where we take all our meals. With her sharp eyes, Giggles can easily identify the birds from the table, but my fuzzy vision means I can only tell that they’re birds! But now I’ve put a pair of binoculars close by so I can see them in detail and help to identify birds we’re not yet familiar with. Giggles isn’t satisfied knowing that they’re birds; she wants to know what kind of bird! So I’m learning more myself…