Critters In The Garden!

   While out working in the gardens this afternoon, I noticed that yet another of my critter friends came to visit.  This time, a mockingbird was my helper.  The bird was busying itself investigating the cabbages for worms.  Even though the birds scratch around in the mulch or sometimes cannot resist taking a nip out of the crops, I welcome birds into the garden.  These are free pest control and they fall under that category as being fully ecologically safe and organic!  In fact, there are very few critters that are not welcome around here.  

  I do have to wonder if it is possible that this is one of the mockingbirds that I raised after they were orphaned.  When I got the pair, they were so tiny that neither had much in the way of feathers and could do little more than flop around in the makeshift nest.  It was a daunting task to take on raising yet more critters and especially ones so tiny.  It became my duty to do round the clock feedings something I had not done in some 30 years at the time.  Happy to say, both birds survived and then adopted our old dog as their surrogate mom.  She was so very protective of her wards.  The birds flourished and I allowed them to come and go as they pleased for a while by keeping the screen door open.  Soon, they made their way to being "real" birds and joined their wild cousins.  Both did come back for a while to visit.  I would often find one clinging to the screen door wanting to come back inside the Little Bayou House.  Of course, they were welcome to enter and stay as long as they pleased.   Could this be Knox or Shelby?  Who knows?  I seriously doubt it but it is nice to think perhaps one or both are still around.  Regardless, the little mockingbird brought happiness to the day and I will take that!

Hiking Buddy

   My days here on the Bayou usually wrap around several hikes.  Chores take up most of the day but there is never too much needing done that I cannot take a quick jaunt to the back creek or along the marsh edge.  These hikes are more of a "sanity keeper" than anything else.  I need to feel that connection with the Bayou, itself.  So, I meander wherever the calling takes me.  

  More oft than not, a single mockingbird will meander with me. The bird usually will stay just a few feet from me while hopping from shrub to shrub.  The thickets provide it plenty of places to feel comfortable yet near.  It watches my every move...my every step, yet, does not seem to have great fear.  Several times during my thrice daily walks, the bird will chirp as if trying to tell me something.  I ponder.  I wonder what it would say if we could communicate.

  I also ponder if this is either Knox or Shelby.  Those were the two baby mockingbirds that I raised after the parent birds were killed.  Those two came back to visit for several years.  Now, this single bird follows me.  Is it one of them? Can birds have long term memory?  Would it even recall the relationship we had after so many years?  So many questions go unanswered.  Still, the bird seems to have great interest in me and, of course, I do the same.  The mockingbird and I have an ongoing friendship.  I welcome that.