Bird Watching

Our backyard was such a flutter this afternoon with all of our favorite colored Michigan birds.  Bright red cardinals, blue jays of all sizes, woodpeckers, robins, chickadees.

They inspired me to go outside while the laundry was running and try my hand at bird photography.  By the way, my little point and shoot camera only zooms to 8X, so I didn't have the highest of expectations when trudging outdoors.

My first shot: I can't tell if it's a quickly moving bird or a leftover dead leaf that couldn't bring itself to take its plunge to the ground yet.  Sigh...

Matters weren't helped by the fact that a noisy blue jay alerted the avian world of my presence with his rude warning cackle.  I quickly learned the bigger the bird, the bigger the brain.  All deliciously chubby birds of color quickly fled, never to return, leaving me with nothing but a tree full of dull, tiny, chattering sparrows.

One brave cardinal decided to dare the berry-lined fence that divides our backyard from our neighbor's.  But, he was stubborn enough to stay twigs-in-face, apparently fully aware of my mission.  It's a camera, not a gun, Mint!  (Oh yeah, "Mint" was my childhood nickname for every cardinal that lived in the woods behind my family home growing up.  I would pretend there was only one and his name was Mint.  I'm guessing "Mint" came about when I was at a loss of words when searching for "Cinnamon".  I'd beg my mom to let me adopt Mint and keep him in a parakeet cage, but she never gave in.  To this day every cardinal is still Mint.  And, today, Mint was gorgeous, although a slight pain in the arse.)

There was also a chickadee who braved a safe distance, staying high enough out of reach and far enough to not quite capture by lens.  This led me on a goofy game of "What Part of  Being Human Makes the Birds Stay Away?"

Since I had been using my soft-footed "Indian Walk", I knew is wasn't my noisiness.  So, I then decided that the problem had to be: 1.) Me being an obvious large blob moving around a large open space and 2.) My eyes. 

To resolve issue #1, I moved my search up against the storage shed.  I leaned against its yellow wall and tried ferociously to blend.  #2's conclusion was drawn because I was bored enough to allow my brain to wander to the remembrance of that butterfly we once learned about in long-past science class, who has the natural defense mechanism of bearing spots on its wings that resemble an owl's eyes.  This makes birds think twice before diving in to eat it.  Since my own eyes are especially googly, I decided that birds must be equally intimidated by mine.

As a solution, I created this method of preventing my eyes from seeming like a threat: Don't look up for too long.  Looking up makes you eyes too big.  Hood your eyes between glances.  You might look half-sedated, but only the birds are watching and they don't know of these things.  Then cautiously glance again in the other direction.  Eyelids up.  Eyelids down.  Eyelids up.  All around.  (There was a little photo journalism initiated here to document the theory, but I decided it best not to share...)

Did I think this strategy would really work?  Eh, I was willing to pretend.  The day you give up playing make-believe is the day your eternal state of boredom begins.  Boredom, I resist.  So, I will play the eye game. 

And, soon came closer another chickadee.  Not afraid because of my eyelid shields.  Right?  Well, he soon flew away too and I felt defeated.  There was this baby blue jay with a tiny little tuft that I was really  hoping to get a shot of but, like I was still coming to terms with, the smart birds kept away.

I tried the front yard.  Eye game in play, trying my best to look bored and nonthreatening... No dice.

Changing subjects, I briefly tried to lure a frisky black squirrel from the neighbor's yard.  If you just asked, "Black Squirrel???", you must not be from these parts.  Whenever someone visits from out of state or even from outside our ten-mile radius, they're always taken aback by our squirrels.  Yes, we have your everyday grey squirrels too.  But, the sight of one painted black causes some to ask, "What is that?  A skunk?"  Yes, around here we're into removing skunks' white stripes, giving them lipo, and teaching them to climb trees.  And, with that I hand them their free pass to the 21st century.  Metro-Detroit: Our wildlife as diverse as our schools.

Well, my squirrel buddy seemed to continue to favor the neighbors yard, so I decided my best bet was the whistling tree of sparrows.  It was becoming pretty populated by now.

I then decided I wanted to catch a bird in flight, so more games of attraction ensued. 

A round of "Eye Game" followed by a round of "See the grass. Be the grass." All the while whistling a melody that may have sounded more like the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind than any known bird call, but lo and behold...

There it is.  Right of center.  "Bird in Flight".

Shortly after, a round of fireworks/semi-automatic bullet-shooting went off in one of the neighbors yards, causing even the dumb sparrows (and me) to flee in every direction!

On my way to take cover, I found one last non-moving target of proof of active bird life.

Call me weird, call me Crazy Bird Lady (even though I've been openly campaigning for the "Crazy Cat Lady" title for the past several years...) but one thing you'll never be able to call me is bored.

P.S.  And, I guess it's safe to say that I'm a terrible bird photographer.