Chelsea O'Byrne
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It was Sue’s idea to get the bird feeders – she thought it would entertain our cat. Before he was rounded up by the Humane Society, Truffle was a stray. Now his name is Nigel, and he’s a house cat. At Sue’s old place, he’d sit on the back of the sofa and watch people walk their dogs. But this house is set further back from the street, and there’s not much pedestrian traffic. Sue thought that if we put an ottoman underneath the back window of our living room, Nigel would lie on it and watch the birds feeding.
From a specialty store, we obtained two bird feeders and a bag of seed mixture specially formulated by an avian biologist. We filled the feeders, hung them on the railing of the deck and waited to see what exotic species could be attracted to a suburban backyard by the offer of free grub. The response reminded me of the old line about hosting a party that no one came to. There were plenty of birds around, but none that were interested in our all-you-can-eat buffet. Nigel lay on the ottoman – and fell asleep.
Perhaps the avian-biologist food was too healthy. Maybe we were serving granola when our potential customers craved junk food. To test that theory, we tried generic bird seed from the grocery store. Success! The feeders now swarmed with birds. And, as Sue had predicted, Nigel was fascinated by the avian activity in the backyard. He started to spend most of his waking hours (granted, not a large part of a cat’s day) birdwatching from his perch by the window. We call it “Cat TV”. It’s like having a television set that only gets the National Geographic channel.
Initially, most of the birds on Cat TV were house sparrows. Nothing against Passer domesticus, but we were hoping for a more diverse clientele. Having a virtual monopoly of the feeders, some of the sparrows got so fat that I’m surprised they could still fly. I swear one of them developed man-boobs. Fortunately word soon got around the avian world, and we started seeing chickadees, nuthatches, flickers, cowbirds, goldfinches and grosbeaks.
The birdfeeders are supposed to be squirrel-proof: the feeding platforms are on a spring-loaded cage that surrounds the seed reservoir. The cage descends when a squirrel puts its weight on it, closing off access to the food. That doesn’t stop the little beggars from trying, though. It’s comical to watch a squirrel contort its body, like it’s playing Twister, in an attempt to get its face into the feeding hole while not putting any weight on the cage.
The squirrels don’t miss out entirely. They loiter under the feeders, awaiting crumbs from the rich man’s table. The birds are messy eaters at the best of times. Some will root around until they find the peanut or sunflower seed they prefer. It’s manna from heaven for the squirrels, and also for the mourning doves that toddle around the deck.
Much more successful in cheating the birds out of their food are our two resident chipmunks. They have the critical advantage of being light enough not to trigger the cage-lowering mechanism. Unlike the birds, which tend to select a seed and fly off with it, the chipmunks cram as much as possible into their elasticated cheek-pouches. By the time they are ready to scurry back to their burrows, their heads are the size of their bodies. Hence the nicknames we gave them: Chubby Cheeks and Bawface.
On occasions when Sue and I forgot to bring in the birdfeeders at night, they were completely empty by morning. Are there that many nocturnal birds in southwestern Ontario? Do Chubby Cheeks and Bawface have a couple of buddies working the night shift? One evening Sue and I waited until it was good and dark, then flicked on the outside light. A big raccoon was sitting on the railing, one paw holding up the bird-feeder cage, the other paw at its mouth, a guilty expression on its face. Masked bandit busted! After that we were more careful about bringing the feeders inside at dusk.
Sue and I watch Cat TV, too. On summer evenings, when the setting sun is slanting across the backyard, we’ll sit on the patio and have a glass of wine. From there we have a good view of the feeders, but are far enough away not to scare the birds. As long as we keep quiet, our presence doesn’t bother the chipmunks, either: they scuttle back and forth across the patio, virtually under our feet. The other animals have also learned to ignore humans. Greedy Guts, our local groundhog, lumbers across the patio on his way to raid the vegetable garden. Agatha, the resident rabbit, occasionally takes a shortcut across the flagstones. At some point we acquired a skunk, who was given the name Beauregard. He wants to live under the deck, but we aren’t too keen on the idea because of the whole body-odour thing. Fortunately the lattice barrier has proven to be skunk-proof. But Beauregard has found a home somewhere nearby, and is regularly seen commuting across the patio. He seems particularly unworried by the presence of humans, presumably because, deep in his little skunk brain, he knows that we aren’t going to mess with him.
Now that winter is here, most of the animals are hibernating and many of the birds have headed off to warmer climes. But the sparrows are still around, and a group of juncos have arrived from their summer home in the Arctic. The squirrels still play Twister and loiter under the feeders. Perhaps they look up once in a while and see a black-and-white cat face at the window, as Nigel watches his favourite wildlife show from the warmth and comfort of the living room.
Graeme Hunter lives in London, Ontario.