Canter Bridge

After a season of travel, it’s beautiful to be back home where a holiday morning can be spent in my easy chair with some good books and a pair of binoculars to oversee my backyard, where my birds are enjoying the overdue filling of their feeders.

Yesterday afternoon, a Red-Breasted Nuthatch came to the feeders even as I was filling them. I don’t remember seeing this bird here before, though I’ve learned that they’re common in Indiana in the winters. This one was completely unafraid of me as I filled feeders inches from the one on which he was feeding. Even some gentle movements intended to test his resolve did not scare him off. He was beautiful from such unexpected proximity.

This morning the feeders are full of Northern Cardinals, Black-Capped Chicadees, and a flock of what I take to be House Finches, though have still to confirm this.

On the novelty side, one or more small, dark birds have begun to use a gourd-shaped woven hanging house that I picked up at a hardware store some months ago. Having swung unattended in the breeze since the heat of summer, it now finds itself a home—or at least a sanctuary—to what I am hoping is a pair of Dark-Eyed Juncos who may have joined us for winter. I’ve yet to determine, however, whether Juncos would use such a haven as their home.

A pair of mourning doves has joined the colloquy just now at lunchtime.

As soon as I refill the peanut feeder we’ll probably see the two to eight Blue Jays that frequent the place when peanuts in the shell are offer.

While I was traveling, my wife joined some friends at the Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area, a two hour drive north of Indianapolis, to watch the Sand Hill Cranes at their migration staging area as they prepare to depart for Mexico. We’ve already written this into our schedule for a joint visit next Autumn.

Yesterday Linda and I did a rare shared walk though the Holliday Park, just across the street from our home and along the White River. Rosie, our Rhodesian Ridgeback obeys the law by staying on lead, since this gentle but muscular giant scares people when she encounters them along the park’s trails. Tucker, however, runs free, obeying the spirit of the law by leaving people alone, even if he could be booked on the letter by an overzealous parksman. Even in this relatively cold weather, Tucker loves to plunge into the high-level waters of the White River in futile but spirited chase of the ducks that must think him a rather pathetic form of entertainment.

Tucker has been to death’s door a number of times since we picked up this Labbie-mutt companion in our Costa Rican days. For this reason, it’s doubly satisfying to see him out there swimming energetically against a strong current, heaving out an occasional ferocious park at the bemused ducks whom he never catches up with, and then emerging to bound like Rin Tin Tin over hill and dale in the Park.