The unquenchable hunger of baby birds

For some relief from the turbulent mental experiences caused by reading about contemporary political reality, I recommend Laura Wood’s beautifully written article yesterday about baby birds in spring and their incessant, even accusatory, demand for food from their parents.

A friend with whom I was spending the afternoon read the article to me aloud from his laptop, and then sent this to Laura:

I’m sitting here with Larry and just read to him your bon-bon, “Baby Bird.” We both agree it’s quite tasty, and has stilled, for the moment, our squawking.

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

So true about the baby birds. I know it, I have a nest of starlings in my house. A woodpecker (Northern Flicker is what I have around here) punched a hole through some wire mesh in vent holes at the top of my house, and the starlings got in and nested. It’s a cacaphony of hungry chirping, ALL DAY LONG. Lucky for me, I get to leave and go to work.

Tim W. writes:

A nice coincidence that you linked Laura Wood’s posting on baby birds today. A robin couple (a male and a female, no less) built a nest on my house. It’s on a metal fixture near the front door. The babies hatched and they’re demanding food constantly. It’s all the parents can do to dig up enough food to satisfy them.

Jane S. writes:

I have a tribe of blue jays living in my backyard. They always have a full nursery but it’s funny how you never see baby jays. I’ve spoiled them by leaving out scraps, so they show off for me, diving-bombing the neighbor’s cat. They scold me vociferously when I neglect them. Now I know how my name sounds in bird language (can’t spell it, though).

LA replies:

That reminds me that behind my parent’s home in New Jersey there were many blue jays. We had a big picture window in our den looking out to the back yard, and my father always maintained a feeder right outside that window so we could see the birds feed. But for all the blue jays around our house, I never saw a blue jay nest. The blue jays were the loud obnoxious ones, who chased other birds away. The prize, only seen occasionally, was the cardinals.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 27, 2011 09:53 AM | Send