Mystery!

Even if they are sparse in the winter months, birds are abundant in Houston in spring and summer. Right? Sometime in April I will get up to find the yard covered with a flock of red-breasted robins moving through. They subsist on bugs or worms in the grass and then by mutual agreement are gone. By May I hear the early morning call of doves, “Who cooks for you?” A faint “cheer-up” requires me to look for a cardinal, usually a pair: a bright male and a dull female. A mess in the street shows that the neighborhood night herons have returned to their tree nest on an overhanging branch. I have two feeders in the backyard that are emptied by doves, cardinals, and many sparrows.

However, this spring something went awry. No familiar sounds and not many birds. We do have a red-tailed hawk that soars and he may have been part of the problem. Also I bought one new feeder with only perches and not a tray for comfortable resting. An ornithologist friend of a son thinks I didn’t put out food when birds were marking feeding territory. I have filled both feeders and only the one on the right gets emptied and never when I am watching. I’ve seen only one female cardinal actually partaking. I have baffles on the poles and sneaky squirrels can’t be blamed. It’s a mystery!

So, as often happens, I am trudging on not sure of the answer. I refill the one feeder when it is empty and leave the other unused. Yes, there actually is a web site “Why birds might avoid new feeders” with six reasons from innate caution to picky eaters and the list ends with a call for patience on my part. I am proceeding even if cautiously because I am sure that whatever I am doing right or wrong, birds of Swift Blvd are not starving. I have Biblical proof.

 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Matthew 6:26a