We're Birders Now Learn how backyard birdwatching became a full-time hobby for our family. Backyard rhythm
There is a rhythm to our backyard that I didn’t notice until the quiet of COVID. During those first few months, my youngest daughter and I were usually the first ones awake. She’s always been an early bird, but some fun new anxieties were waking me around 5 every morning. So we’d come downstairs together and I’d make coffee and let the dogs out while my daughter ate breakfast. Then we’d meet in the sun room to watch the birds. Now I do it every day.
Pecking orderWho knew there was such a precise schedule of activity happening in the yard every morning? It always starts with the small birds: chickadees, sparrows, cardinals and dark-eyed juncos. They line up along the fence and wait, mostly patiently, for their turn on one of the feeders or in the bird bath. They knock down as many seeds as they take from the feeders while more small birds wait underneath to snatch up those seeds. They have a system. Occasionally a robin or the pair of woodpeckers that lives nearby will visit during the small birds’ time, but they usually dine later when it’s less crowded.
The bird processionThey’re all eventually driven away by the two blue jays who are the bosses (and bullies, if I’m being honest) of the yard. They strut around and take their time eating breakfast, knowing no birds will interrupt them for fear of getting pecked to death.
Then the crows come. They are big and kind of rude, but they stick to the ground and eat what the small birds dumped earlier. Since they act as the clean-up crew, I don’t get so annoyed that we’re wasting birdseed. Finally, the smallbirds come back to hang with the rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks
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