Birds!

Since this our first spring at the farm, I am learning more every day about some of our seasonal residents, the birds.

Yesterday morning I hiked down to the barn to check on the pigs and was greeted by a male barn swallow as I flipped on the lights. He flew up and hovered in the air like a hummingbird, not 2 feet from my face. He seemed to regard me as though committing my features to memory. Then he perched on a fence rail and watched me feed the pigs, making sure I didn't have any designs on his new nest in the far corner of the barn. As I walked back up to the house the bubbly squeaks of starlings and the coos of mourning doves filled the darkness.

Coming home from work, after stopping at the feed mill, I parked in the driveway and while getting out of my car saw a hen pheasant bobbing her head in and out of a tall clump of grass near the grapevines, maybe keeping an eye on her cluster of olive-colored eggs? A prehistoric raspy croak drew my attention skyward where a trio of
sandhill cranes glided on enormous wings toward the top of the hill, below them a merlin floated on a rising wind, his black-barred tail announcing his species as clearly as a name tag. In the raspberry bushes near the house a cardinal called "what cheer, what cheer" and I had to agree.

This morning, though, was the most amazing thing. As I walked toward my car I pressed the 'unlock' button on the remote so that I could open the hatch in back. The short "beep, beep" of the alarm sounded and 2 seconds later I heard it again. I was fairly sure I hadn't accidentally pushed the button a second time, but shrugged it off. As I was unloading some things from the back, I heard it again, "beep beep". I stepped back from my wagon and pressed the button, the car beeped and immediately the sound was repeated from a cluster of pines at the bottom of the hill. I stood there laughing for a minute or two, pressing the car alarm and listening to the response from an unseen bird. I wonder if he thought he was wooing a partner?