A Bird in the Bush

“A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.” No, that’s not how it goes.  “Two birds in the bush are worth one in the hand?”  No, that’s not it either.  How about, “two birds in the hand are worth one in the bush? “ Nope.  That’s wrong too. . . .Don’t tell me, I’ll figure it out.

In the meantime, look at this photo.

There is a bird in that bush.  Can you see it?

We try to arrange our bird feeding stations around the back yard away from the usual urban predators, especially house cats.  We also insure that the feeders hang high enough that the dogs, should they suddenly become interested in birds — as dogs sometimes do — can’t jump up and reach a bird on a feeder.  Mainly though the dogs are happy with the left-overs underneath the feeders and not interested in the birds themselves.

But some predators come no matter what we do.  The occasional hawk flies in and surveys the cafeteria.  Racoons are not unheard of.  And that bird in the bush in the photo.  Have you found it yet?  It is well-camouflaged, as a House Sparrow discovered just moments after the photo was snapped.  “Snapped” was what happened to the sparrow’s neck.  The bird in the bush agreed with Shakespeare, “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.”

Here is the photo enlarged.

Yes.  That is Chuck, our neighborhood Greater Roadrunner.  Chuck and Chuckina still come for hamburger bits on the front wall but they also visit the back yard.  We think they have babies. We’ve watched them collect two or three bits of hamburger in their beaks and run off down the street without eating the hamburger first.  This is new behavior.  Usually they just clack at us and eat the hamburger.  We conclude from this that they are feeding babies, although we have not found their nest and can’t be sure.

One bird in the bush is . . . deadly to sparrows.