Dalton Roberts’s podcast urging citizens to take action 07/03/09

I have come to believe that all things come to those who pay attention, and I pay attention to birds, thanks to my dear mother who was unceasingly amused at their ways. If you feed birds, you will get the biggest entertainment bang for your buck.

They fly for you. They fuss and fight for you. They lay many colors of eggs for you. They raise their babies right outside your window and let you watch them teach them to fly. Now and then, one will become a loving member of your family, so close to you that their death will make you cry. That's how it was with Long John Cardinal.

I wrote a column about Long John Cardinal years ag,o and that story is the centerpiece of my five-buck bookazine titled "Long John Cardinal and the Best of Dalton Roberts." The basics of that story bear repeating along with another bird story I want to share with you today.

Long John only had one leg and could not cling to my safflower feeder (safflower is the favorite food of the cardinal) so I laid down a line of safflower and sunflower seeds atop the two-by-fours enclosing my patio. I fed him that way daily for five years and often said to him, "Long John, if you are a normal cardinal you will only live eight years. When your time comes don't go off somewhere and die and leave me wondering what happened to you. Die right here on my patio, and I will give you a good Christian burial."

One March morning I went out to feed him, and he was lying there at the base of the fence just as I had asked him to do. I kept my word and did the whole "ashes to ashes, feathers to dust" routine, burying him under the cedar tree where he sat and waited on me every morning.

With only one leg he raised one or two broods of children every year for five years. His libido almost killed him one year when he raised three broods. I had a father-son talk with him, and he never did that again. I think the main thing that helped him reel in his libido was seeing how well I had managed mine all these years.

My favorite bird story of this spring is about Big Mouth and Spunky, two bluebird babies, residing just feet from my bird-watching window in an old ramshackle bluebird house. It irritates me that just six feet away is a fancy $45 molded bluebird house that no birds have ever nested in. Birds are wonderfully unpredictable.

I noticed when Mama or Papa bluebird came with a succulent grasshopper Big Mouth's big mouth would take up the entire hole and Spunky would keep lunging forward trying to get a bite. I grew up with a big-mouthed sister, so I really identified with little Spunky. For my health's sake, let me say that my big-mouthed sister has grown into a charming soft-spoken adult. I'm a politician, and I wouldn't lie to you.

As the day passed, Spunky saw that position is everything when it comes to grasshopper dining. Somehow he gained command of the hole for a while and dined in succulent splendor. He would use his whole body to close off the hole and deny Big Mouth his lunch break. But by dinner Big Mouth was back in business, forcing Spunky to crack his noggin lunging at the hole for the tiniest morsel.

Bird parents feed the first available mouth. Cowbirds often lay their eggs in nests of smaller species and the big greedy cowbirds get all the food and the smaller birds perish. If you see a non-blue egg in a bluebird box, throw it away, and you will save the lives of some baby blues.

Next week I'll tell you the story about the line-dancing house finch.

E-mail Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com