The Cupertino Courier

Letters & Opinions

Arrival of favorite pair makes editor's day

By Carol Bogart

It's funny how just a little thing can change your entire outlook.

On Memorial Day, contrary to the usual enthusiasm with which I greet most new days, I just couldn't make my head get up off the pillow.

It's not that I was especially tired.

I wasn't, even though I'd spent a fair amount of time rearranging planters and bird feeders over the weekend, even going so far as to climb a tree.

My apartment is in a building that sits up on a little rise, so I can't see a feeder hanging from a lower limb of the tree that shades my office.

Balanced precariously--one foot in the crook of the tree, the other on the window ledge--I did manage to get the feeder up a little higher.

This interest in birds has its origins in Ohio where my mother kept a well-thumbed "bird book" right beside her on the dining room table.

When I first moved to California, I never saw or heard birds in the tree outside my townhouse. "California doesn't have birds," I decided.

Thinking that just couldn't possibly be true, I put up my collection of feeders.

Initially, all I got were mourning doves, sparrows and finches. But as time went on, the variety grew. I had the occasional woodpecker; a white-breasted nuthatch; a cedar waxwing and once, swooping in hoping for an easy meal, a sharp-shinned hawk. The bird book said, "If songbirds dream, the sharp-shinned hawk is their nightmare." Slightly smaller than a red-tailed hawk, the sharp-shinned is a wily predator, one that waits for an unwary moment to pick off small birds feasting at a feeder.

Even though I eventually attracted an entire family of chickadees plus an array of hummingbirds that quarreled with one another as they zipped and hovered, I did miss seeing Ohio's state bird, the cardinal.

In winter at the farm, even the less spectacularly hued females stood out against the snow. And the males, well, Christmas card depictions don't do them justice.

They have such a distinctive song, too, a high-pitched chip-chip-chip. My son Mike was initially impressed when, as I stood at the sink washing dishes, I stopped, listened, and said, "Look outside, the cardinal's back." He looked out the window in the door, then turned to me with wonder in his eyes. "How did you know?" he asked, awestruck, knowing that from where I stood, I couldn't see it. For minute or two, I let him think I was an amazing clairvoyant, but then taught him, too, how to recognize the cardinal's call.

One morning, a year or so ago, I heard what at first I thought might be a California cardinal. The chip-chip-chip was so familiar. Looking for the source, I spotted a robin-shaped bird sitting on a rock, then heard an answering chip-chip-chip from a nearby rooftop.

The suede-colored bird on the rock turned and I saw rust-red feathers beneath its tail. Again it called to its mate. Again, its mate answered.

I looked them up and learned that they were California towhees and that they mate for life.

These two became regular visitors to my back patio, one landing atop the privacy fence, the other perched on the outdoor rocker. Eventually, they became so habituated to my presence that both would hop down a few feet from me to peck at the seed I'd scattered.

A month or so before I moved in April, I'd been weaning all the birds from the feeders a little at a time. The two towhees stuck around the longest. I've missed them.

On Memorial Day, I cast a still half-sleeping eye at the clock and assured myself I didn't really have to get up at 6:30, despite the dog's insistence. Dropping my head back on the pillow, I started to go back to sleep--when, from just outside my window, I heard "hurry-hurry-hurry chip-chip-chip."

Now I was awake.

Throwing on a pair of shorts, T-shirt and sneakers, I stuffed a plastic Safeway bag and house keys into my shorts pocket, hooked dog to leash and set off for our morning jaunt.

Coming down the front steps, again I heard, "chip-chip-chip." From just above the gutter, an echoing chip-chip-chip responded.

Sure enough, it was two chubby towhees--one on the ground where the squirrel had scattered seed from the hanging feeder, and, on the roof, its mate. A new pair, probably. Or maybe my old pair found me. After all, Castro Valley's not so very far as the crow (or towhee) flies.

Here's a link for any reader who is intrigued by owls:

http://www.theowlcam.com.

In Benicia, cameras have been installed inside the nesting box of two barn owls named Frida and Diego. A couple of months ago, three owlets hatched. I love them. Maybe you will, too.

Carol Bogart is the new editor of the Cupertino Courier. Contact her at cbogart@community-newspapers.com or call 408.200.1055.