 |
| A black-hearted cow bird |
It gets harder,
as I think more about things, to shoot something just because I disagree with
it’s
 |
| headed for the nest… this blacksnake has a wicked look in his eye! |
lifestyle. It was not so hard to shoot a big blacksnake last summer that was crawling up an oak tree to eat the little bluebirds in a bluebird box I had attached to it. He made me realize that I need to take that box off the tree and put it on a steel post, then keep the post greased so his descendants can't climb it.
It is easy to
shoot the occasional copperhead that ventures to close to my home here on this
wilderness hilltop we call lightnin’ ridge. As I get older, instead of heading
for the lake or river early in the morning, I make a cup of coffee and sit out
on my screened porch; looking at the patch of grass and plant life we jokingly
refer to as a ‘yard’, or ‘lawn’.
 |
|
This blue racer isn’t evil… I don’t think.
Never seen one eat a baby bird!!!
|
It is a place for occasional wildflowers and mushrooms, rabbits, and all kinds of birds. Some snakes, like the hog-nose or garter snake or blue-racer, may cross it safely, as do terrapins or a variety of lizards. The lizards occasionally fall prey to the yellow-billed cuckoos, which us Ozark country folks call 'rain-crows'!
Yesterday, there
they were, hopping around in my backyard, beneath the big oaks, a male and a
female cowbird of the brown-headed variety. Only the male has the brown head. The female is gray. Though only the male is
brown-headed, I think both of them
are black hearted, because they are like so many in the Ozarks... they are
too lazy to work to provide for their offspring.
That does not
include me. I worked hard to make a good life for my offspring without causing
difficulty for my neighbors. When
my daughters left the nest, they left a nest I had built myself. This cannot be said of the
brown-headed, black-hearted cowbird.
They build no nest. They find one made by a cardinal or bluejay or
mockingbird and kick those eggs out of the nest, laying their own
where returning birds of some other species, will hatch and raise their young
for them.
You would think
that any bird would be wise to this, but they aren’t, displaying the traits for
which we refer to really dumb folks, usually found in the big cities, as
‘bird-brains’!
At any rate, now
that I have made many city people mad at me, let me tell you why I let those
brown-head birds venture off on their own to do what they do without being
shot.
The male, all
black except for his brown head, was following that smaller gray hen around,
standing straight and high, then huffing up his feathers to make him look
taller and wider than he really is, throwing his brown head forward, making him
look hunch-backed and disheveled.
That quite often makes the female receptive to mating with him. Who knows why that would be, he looks
awful doing that. It didn’t work that day. She was apparently quite hungry and seemed to be trying to
get away from him.
He really looked
stupid running around on the grass and leaf litter right below my place on the
screened porch, huffing up and hunching over. It reminded me that I had often done something similar as a
youth, trying to show off my muscles and getting some girl to notice me. It never seemed to work for me any
better than it did for him.
Eventually they
both flew up on a white-oak branch only a few feet from where I sat drinking my
coffee whilst I listened to an old gobbler sounding off down the ridge from my
nest… er, I mean ‘house’.
I could have
plugged the two cowbirds with my .22 rifle, but it would mean making a pair of
holes in the screen of about 1/5th of an inch, big enough to let in
a fly or mosquito later in the summer.
So I left it to
the Great Creator to deal them justice for their evil ways. But really it seems
as if he has been overlooking a great deal of evil everywhere lately. I may,
later this summer, take things into my own hands and shoot their progeny, even
if it will upset some mama cardinal or brown thrasher that raised them.
You wonder why
God created things like brown-headed cowbirds or copperheads, or cockleburs. I guess he had His reasons, and as I
see the perfection of His hand in the woods and streams not yet ruined by the
hand of man, I feel a lot better than I do sitting on the porch watching some
devilish blacksnake trying to eat my baby bluebirds.
Then I begin to
think that the blacksnake and I aren’t so much different. I wouldn’t eat a baby rabbit or
squirrel for anything, but I would sure eat either one this winter when they
are grown up. If the blacksnake
waits until everything grows up, he will starve to death.
It likely is best
for me not to get into such deep thinking as I sit on the porch and drink
coffee. I am fairly sure God didn’t create me for any deep thinking! It is best
to get up early and head for the river and try to catch some five- pound,
evil-minded largemouth, which might eat a baby wood duck or a whole household
of young crawdads in his self-indulgent whims.
I think that is
perhaps what God put me on earth for… to stand up for the weak and defenseless,
catching evil bass and evil catfish and evil walleye. But the cowbird episode shows me I am getting too old for
such purposes, growing too kind-hearted to do what should be done.
However, through
this column I might encourage others to keep a shotgun handy and shoot every cowbird
and copperhead they see. In
such a manner, I continue to be of some value, straightening out Mother Nature
in her misguided ways.
You
can read more about the outdoors and nature in my Lightnin Ridge Outdoor
magazine’s summer issue. To get a
copy of it, call my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins, who will likely be
napping at her desk here in our executive offices on Lightnin’ Ridge. The phone
number is 417 777 5227. You may write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or
email me at lightninridge@windstream.net
No comments:
Post a Comment