For the Birds

My friend, Steve Jaffe and his wife Janice moved to Virginia, a stone’s throw from the Chesapeake Bay. Steve built a new house, a large pole barn and a garden.  With a combination of fields and woods, Steve always has something going on with flora and fauna.

Recently, Steve sent two photographs of birds sitting on his finger. Here are the pictures and his account of how they joined him. . .

We've had several birds hit the large glass windows on our house. These two guys survived the crashes. They both hit the ground motionless, but I could see they were still breathing.

In the picture above, I walked over and softly rubbed the bird’s head and feathers while several of his clan watched from the nearby fence. After a few minutes I lifted him so he could stand, and put my finger at his feet. He hopped on with no coaxing.

So at that point I'm beating the outside wall to get Janice's attention to get the camera. I walked all the way around the house to get her; the bird stayed on the whole time and obliged three pictures. We then sat on a front porch rocker for a few minutes; He wasn't much of a conversationalist. He finally gathered his wits and flew off.
 

The second guy hit with a real bang and must have been out for 10 minutes. I picked him up and held him ‘til he could stand. He stayed on my finger for about 20 minutes. He was such a wreck I had to help preen him. I put him in a shady spot where he stayed for some time, and he finally flew off.

I'm going to adorn the windows with something that keeps the birds away.