Monk

Before I forget again to mention it.

This is the first year that the birds have not built a nest on our porch since they began the yearly ritual a very long time ago.

Actually, they did try once in the spring, but apparently they started to build it right on top of our door, and Father had to remove it, and they stopped trying after that.

Maybe the cats have something to do with this.

I have mixed feelings.

I kind of liked seeing that extra stream of life flowing through our lives. The baby birds. Their feeding. Learning how to fly.

On the other hand, I hated having to hose down the porch a couple of times a week. Worse, I hated seeing the baby birds face that threat to their lives, from both the cats and this dry, killing weather.

I have been trying to remember when the birds started with us.

Did this begin when Mother was still here?

It might have, but I cannot remember at all clearly. I would bet that it did, because I think I used to worry about Princess as well as Bo bothering the birds, so that I would make a point of taking them out back when the baby birds might be trying their wings.

♠
Professional bird-watcher shoots and kills cat. Is it animal cruelty?

The case has prompted emotional commentary on the Internet. Cat enthusiast blogs have called Mr. Stevenson a “murderous fascist” and a “diabolical monster.” Birding blogs have defended his right to dispense with a “terrible menace” and have set up funds to help pay for his defense.

One of the many things I love about this article is how the case may depend on whether the cat was feral. Talk about hitting home, eh?

( article )

xXx

♠
On the post-dinner rounds with Bo, I almost step on a baby frog. Walking on, I see an adult frog jumping away from my footsteps. Frogs, cats, dogs... so much life. I guess it's beautiful. If only the elephant ears felt more of this life. I look at them drooping toward the ground, dying. Wait... it occurs to me that we haven't had birds in the nest at the porch since mid-summer. Strange. Did the cats spook them? I'm kinda glad not having all that bird poop to hose off the porch, but I don't really feel good about it.

xXx

♠
What the cats don't eat,
the birds will finish off.

I'm not entirely happy with that,
but it is better than letting it go to the ants.

xXx

♠
I woke up before six-thirty. Returning to normal?

It's a good thing, too. Bo was eager to go outside. At least as eager as the poor old boy can be. I ache watching him slowly get up. You can almost hear the bones cracking.

************

I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw a tiny, scrawny baby birdie in the nest. Another round of hatchlings. The porch is going to get shitty again and need hosing down everyday.

I am impressed with how much shit (literally) that I have to deal with. But I guess that is life. It's very essence.

************

I almost never hear anything good about MicroSuck (I'm going to adopt this name). I marvel how Gates and them are sort of the gods of the Internet. They seem so clueless about computers and programming.

-- Monk

A friend was having trouble with the new Windows Vista and dealing with MicroSuck. Headaches are their greatest product, I think.

xXx

♠
Another drizzly day in late May! I'm not complaining. We are far enough away from those earlier deluges that only blissful appreciation is felt, that we should be enjoying an actual spring May instead of the usual summer May. I hope Pop appreciates it. This weather has saved him at least a hundred bucks on the air-conditioner as it continues to sit idle.

The only mar to this graceful spring is all the bird ordure on the porch. It has gotten bad enough that Monk has to spray it off every day now. I wonder if the birds actually had their hatchlings already and they are just hidden in that deeper nest.

xXx

♠



A lovesick albatross has spent the last 40 years unsuccessfully looking for romance in Scotland, 8,000 miles away from his natural breeding grounds.

The lonely bird, dubbed Albert, is thought to have first arrived in Scotland after being blown off course in the South Atlantic in 1967.

For the past four decades he has been engaged in a futile attempt to woo gannets on several remote islands.

But experts said Albert had no prospect of finding a mate so far from home.

-- BBC

I know the feeling, buddy, I know the feeling.

xXx

♠
Scientists such as de Waal argue the research suggests that, much as people believe in the originality of their thoughts, a lot of human cognition probably takes place at an automatic level, guided by inborn tendencies.

... Two recent studies from the world of birds give us a glimpse into how far back in evolutionary terms complex behaviors that we would normally associate with humans go. One of these behaviors has a nice altruistic aspect to it. The other, not so much. But more on the morality question later.

-- Shankar Vedantam for The Washington Post

Here is another evolutionary anecdote on the bestiality of man. I take this as a matter of course, though I know we have too many who believe men are angels placed on a six-thousand year old earth. Life is wondrous, but not so romantically grand. You don't have to argue hard that lesson to Monk.

( most of the article: the bird part )

xXx