Tales from the Bird Sanctuary: Woodpecker Haven
Posted: February 20, 2023 Filed under: Bird Watching, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary | Tags: Bird Watching, Kaye Lynne Booth, Nuthatch, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary, Woodpeckers, Writing to be Read 5 Comments
I get a wide variety of birds visiting my bird sanctuary, but today I’d like to focus on the different types of woodpeckers. Woodpeckers are curious birds that use their beaks in ways which other birds do not. No matter the type, they all have long, pointed bills, which they use to drill through wood and tree bark in order to locate and get to the insects underneath or to mark their territories. With strong claws, they cling to tree trunks, using their tails as props, and their flight patterns are termed undulating. There are many varieties, including woodpeckers, sapsuckers, and flickers, and several of them visit my yard on a regular basis.
Some varieties are similar in appearance with their black and white coloring, which always make them look as if they’re wearing formal attire. Among these black & white beauties are the hairy woodpecker, Nutall’s woodpecker, and Williamson’s Sapsucker, featured in the gallery below. The Hairy Woodpeckers are Robin-sized, (9 inches), with a loud distinctive peek sound and single-pitched rattled, and they are found all across the United States. Slightly larger, (9 1/2 inches), makes a soft churring sound. The Nuttall’s Woodpecker is smaller than those two, (7-7 1/2 inches), has a rolling preep call and a sharp pit-it sound.
Woodpeckers get their food by hammering holes in the bark, and extracting insects or grubs with long, flexible tongues. They start with a soft tapping to locate the food, and once located, they get down to business. It’s chow time! Hard, rapid drumming on dry limbs indicates that a woodpecker is claiming its territory and can be loud enough to be audible from great distances. One summer I had one who kept claiming its territory on my metal ladder, which was quite the alarm clock on early mornings.
More colorful are the grey and tan Northern Red-shafted Flickers, like the young one shown here, which I rescued last summer. (You can read about that here.) These birds are in the woodpecker family, building their nests in holes in trees, but feed on ants and ground insects, as well as berries, and repeat a loud wicka, wicka, wicka sound. They are elusive birds which are difficult to photograph. I only was able to get the photos like the one above because the little guy was stranded. He took off and disappeared into the forest just as soon as he was able.
Although they aren’t in the woodpecker family, Nuthatches have many similarities to them, especially in their ‘formal attire’, their long, pointed beaks, and the fact that they are cavity dwellers. They also nest in holes in hollow trees, and use their long, sharp beaks to tap-tap-tap on the trees, but their tapping is not as fast or as loud as that of the woodpeckers. They tap on the trees to crack open seeds, rather than to drill into the wood. But these small birds, (4 1/2 – 6 inches), don’t use their tails as props like the woodpeckers do, and are often seen moving down the tree trunk head first. I call them little forest acrobats because of this and the fact they they also can go the full diameter of a tree branch, walking on the underside with their heads toward the ground. Usually I have the slightly larger White-breasted Nuthatches, like the one above, but this past year, I also had visits from the Red-breasted variety, as well.
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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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Tales from the Bird Sanctuary: Rescuing a baby flicker
Posted: November 21, 2022 Filed under: Bird Watching, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary | Tags: Bird Rescue, Bird Watching, Birds, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary, Writing to be Read 15 CommentsToday as I was out doing my landscape maintenance for the bird sanctuary, walking on the path which goes around the water feature, which is only half full this time of year as I prepare to drain it for winter, I saw a baby flicker sitting on top of the drainage pipe. I set down my bucket and stopped to have a better look at him, expecting him to fly away as soon as I approached. But he didn’t. Instead, he just sat there, staring back at me, holding very still.
Now I have wondered through the trees on my property for over an hour, trying to get a picture during mating season, when the trees were filled with flickers and the air was filled with mating calls, only to hang my head on defeat after concluding I wasn’t going to get close enough for a good shot of any one. That’s how skittish flickers are, so the behavior of this little guy was unusual, to say the least.
The fact is, the little guy was scared, and I realized that his tail was in the water, which could hinder flight. He was stranded, too scared or too wet to make an attempt at a getaway. He just sat there staring as I got closer, providing some great photo opportunities. I didn’t want to frieghten him even more by obliviously clicking pictures, so I set down my phone and got down on my knees at the pool’s edge. I reached down very slowly and placed a gloved hand around his body. Trying not to scare him more, I reached over with my thumb and stroked his little feathered head a few times, hoping to let him know that I was trying to help and meant no harm. Even through my garden glove I could feel the softness of his feathers. He hardly weighed aything at all as I scooped him up gently and released him onto the ground, where he flapped his wings and hopped off into the trees, reinforcing my suspicions that the wet feathers was what prevented him from flying off like I expected.
I tried to follow him just to be sure he would be able to fly once he dried, but I lost him in the trees. Had I not stepped in. I have no doubt that he would have sat helpless on that drain pipe until a coyote or other wildlife snatched him away. It was a satisfying feeling to know that I had helped one of my little bird friends and had at least, offered him a chance to survive.
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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
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Tales from the Bird Santuary: Babies!
Posted: October 10, 2022 Filed under: Bird Watching, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary | Tags: Babies, Baby birds, Birds, Kaye Lynne Booth, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary, Writing to be Read 4 CommentsEvery year one of the highlights of the bird sanctuary is discovering which birds have chosen to make nests and raise their little families here. Two years ago, in the spring, I watched as three baby woodpeckers grew and finally set out on their own. One decided that the sanctuary was a pretty cool place, and he hung out through the end of the season. That same summer I got to I also got to watch as a couple of robins raised a family of three, one which was almost taking food out of my hand, as well as monitoring the progress of a nuthatch family, several broods of chick-a-dees, northern flickers, evening grosbeaks, and a family of tiny little birds, which I was unable to identify, nested and raised their brood in the hollow tree just off my porch.
That tree has been home to many a bird family. During my first summer on the property, it was home to a family of chick-a-dees, which were written into my first children’s story, Charlie Chick-a-dee Makes a New Friend, after the violet-green swallows came in late in the summer and chased the chick-a-dees out to claim the nest for their own. Make no mistake. Birds can be brutal.
This year, I have a single baby grosbeak that hangs out in my coal box, which is just to the side of the feeder area, and comes out all alone to get seed each day. I don’t know what happened to its parents, but it seems to be an orphan.
It’s so much fun to watch as the babies grow and learn. (I had to throw in the photo of the baby deer because it is so darn cute.) So far this year, I’ve had a baby woodpecker pass through, but he must have found a better place to nest. I’ve had two batches of nuthatches and two rounds of chick-a-dees, and some baby robins, and rock doves, and evening grosbeaks. And of course, the hummingbirds. Lots and lots of young hummingbirds, juveniles, (we don’t see actual babies unless we happen upon a nest).
Hummingbirds mate twice a year, so I always get quite a few babies, but I can never tell which babies belong to which mamas and papas because there are so many of them. In the height of summer, my yard is a virtual fly zone.
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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
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Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
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Treasuring Poetry – Meet poet and author, Yvette Prior and a book review #Poetrylovers #readingcommunity @bookreview
Posted: September 21, 2022 Filed under: Author Profile, Bird Watching, Book Review, Interview, Poetry, Review, Treasuring Poetry, Women's Fiction and Poetry | Tags: Author Interview, Avian Friends, Book Review, Robbie Cheadle, Treasuring Poetry, Writing to be Read, Yvette Prior 61 Comments
Today, I am very excited to welcome Yvette Prior from Priorhouse blog as my September Treasuring Poetry guest. Yvette is among the first bloggers I met when I started Robbie’s Inspiration and she was always encouraging and supportive of my artwork and writing. Thank you, Yvette.
Today, Yvette, a talented poet and author herself and a huge supporter of other writers and bloggers, is going to share some of her thoughts about poetry and some readings from her lovely poetry book, Avian Friends.
What is your favourite poem and why?
Winter Chill
Stood and listened
to birds tweet and whistle
had breakfast to make
day to begin
stuff to do
but standing
in winter chill
at the back door
harmony
stopped me
hope flew in
melodious infusing during a winter chill
trees still bare
yet birds were there
dulcet air
momentary loss of care
cold days
soon to part ways
winter hard is exiting
birds returning
spring soon erupting
green grass, pleasant breeze
flowers, butterflies, bees
replacing freeze
shivering, I shut the door
musical deliverance once more
Behind the poem
Winter Chillwas written about a brief experience I had when I opened the backdoor one winter’s day. I was stopped in my tracks. It was the first time I had heard the birds in a long time and their “harmony stopped me” as “hope flew in.” I am not what people would refer to as a “birder.” I do not put out seeds and we don’t have any feeders on our property (although I might add some later). The birds have just found a nice little habitat on their own and I am grateful. In this poem, I described the scene exactly as it unfolded -opened the door, heard the birds, and I was reminded that a better season was on its way. This idea could apply to more than just a cold weather season ending – it could also apply to the trials and heavy times in life. Challenging times do not last forever and sometimes we might just need to pause – in the midst of a difficult season – and find small (healthy) ways to enjoy “momentary loss of care.” Hope can mean so much too – and so anytime we have Hope fly in – let’s embrace it.
Please share a poem you enjoy and why you enjoy it
This is just to say by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
***
and which
you were probably
saving for breakfast
***
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Williams’ poem whispers so much to me and one takeaway is the freedom someone felt to indulge in the plum. There are times we sacrifice times we do outreach and hold back – but this depicts the opposite – it shows us someone so comfortable with the other person where they ate the plum (while knowing the person was saving it). The poem makes me smile because I can imagine how juicy and tasty it was. And the title and tone of the poem lets us know that the consumer here is not apologizing for eating it either. That’s my take.
What are your plans for your poetry going forward?
I try to write every day, in a paper notebook, and most of this year I have been busy working on non-poetry projects so I only wrote a handful of poems this year. My goal is to get back to my musings with poetry. Even if all of the poems do not make it into a future book, I enjoy writing them.
I started writing in middle school but really got into poetry while in college. In between classes, I created free verse poems. I moved words around andenjoyed simple rhyming schemes.
I know that folks sometimes put down the easy rhymes, but I like them. It is not about creating difficult poetry for me – it really is a type of solitude with words and ideas.
Thank you, Yvette, for your lovely answers and for being my guest today.
Yvette has shared a lovely YouTube video recital of some of her poems from Avian Friends.
My review of Avian Friends by Yvette Prior
What Amazon says
In Avian Friends, you will find more than forty poems that offer encouragement and uplifting stories. The poems are free rhyme and connect to different life scenarios. Each poem also includes a “behind the poem” section, which provides personal reflections, teaching tidbits, and ideas for wellness. Backyard birds inspired the poems and the topic of faith has been gently woven in (not in a religious way) with the hope that diverse readers can enjoy the content.
The poems in this book are not complicated poems; instead, they are light and can lift the reader’s mood. The poems are for those who do not always read poetry – as well as for the poetry lover.
My review
Avian Friends is a delightful book of poetry that centres around the author’s interactions with birds in her personal life. In the reactions and interactions of her avian friends, the author finds threads of similarity to human reactions to circumstances and experiences and in relationships. She weaves these thoughts into the observations expressed in her poems.
One of the most interesting section of poems for me where the ones written following the death of a young and close relative. The author’s grief is palpable and her understanding of nature and the role of all creatures in the cycle of life help her come to terms with her sorrow and emotions.
An verse from Part III Life and Death:
“The nest was found
on the ground after the storm
nestlings didn’t make it
we mourned
fuzzy little creatures
oversized eyes
chests without air
buried with care
patting down soil
reminded me that we, too, will die …”
I have referred to the poet as the author because there is a lot of reflective prose in this book. Each poem is followed by a discussion which provides the poet’s inspiration for the poem, and includes quotes and information about birds and other aspects of life that contribute to the meaning behind the poem. I really enjoyed these explanatory sections and gleaned a lot of insight into the poet’s emotions and thought process from it.
Enjoyment of this book is certainly not limited to people who love birds as, in many instances, the birds are a metaphor for human life. This book will be enjoyed by all lovers of poetry.
Purchase Avian Friends
Amazon paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Avian-Friends-Yvette-Prior-Ph-D/dp/1973831228
Amazon kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Avian-Friends-Encouraging-inspired-Backyard-ebook/dp/B07QHNZF81
About Yvette Prior
Yvette Prior lives on the East Coast of the United States with her spouse, Chris, and together they have three adult children, two grandchildren, and no pets (after having many dogs over the years).
Yvette enjoys working with people and her varied work background includes education, social work, hospitality management, and lots of outreach. Her passion area is studying about health and wellness and after earning a Ph.D. in I-O Psychology, she poured into waiting book projects and she has not stopped writing since.
Her goal as a writer is to educate, edify, and encourage readers. Her personal blog can be found at priorhouse.wordpress.com
About Robbie Cheadle
Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with eleven children’s books and two poetry books.
The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie and Michael have also written Haunted Halloween Holiday, a delightful fantasy story for children aged 5 to 9 about Count Sugular and his family who hire a caravan to attend a Halloween party at the Haunted House in Ghost Valley. This story is beautifully illustrated with Robbie’s fondant and cake art creations.
Robbie has published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.
Robbie Cheadle contributes two monthly posts to https://writingtoberead.com, namely, Growing Bookworms, a series providing advice to caregivers on how to encourage children to read and write, and Treasuring Poetry, a series aimed at introducing poetry lovers to new poets and poetry books.
In addition, Roberta Eaton Cheadle contributes one monthly post to https://writingtoberead.com called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends which shares information about the cultures, myths and legends of the indigenous people of southern Africa.
Robbie has a blog, https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com. where she shares book reviews, recipes, author interviews, and poetry.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Twitter: BakeandWrite
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyFo_OJLPqFa9ZhHnCfHUA
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
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Tales from the Bird Sanctuary: Frantic Hummingbirds
Posted: June 29, 2022 Filed under: Bird Watching, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary | Tags: Bird Watching, Birds, Colorado, Hummingbirds, Kaye Lynne Booth, Spring Storm, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary, Writing to be Read 4 CommentsColorado weather is always unpredictable. There’s a saying, that is you don’t like the weather in Colorado, just wait twenty minutes, and having lived in Colorado for all of my life, I can say that it is usually true. But this year, we had an unseasonal snow storm on May 21-22, and my area was hit hard. We got at least 24 inches of wet, heavy snow, which left me temporarily snowbound, and confused all the plants in my garden, like my rose, day lilies and lilac bushes, which already had new growth showing. The plants weren’t the only ones confused. After all, the previous week, the temperatures were in the seventies. I was a little confused myself. All the birds who visit the bird sanctuary and the hummingbirds, which have been in the area since April 18th this year, were absolutely frantic.
The snow began falling on the evening of the 20th, and the trees were already drooping low by 10 p.m. As I went to shut my generator off, It sounded like the trees were alive with the little twitts of hummingbirds. They should have been all tucked into their nests by that time of night, but for some reason, they were all perched in the tree branches griping about the weather. I believe that many of these tiny birds were just passing through and the snow stranded them, but for whatever reason, I could tell by the sound that there were a lot of them in those trees.
Hummingbirds are migratory and they fly great distances every year from South America all the way up to the northern regions of the United States. It’s really quite amazing how far these tiny travelers commute. What they don’t do is fly in the dark, at least not usually, but on that night, I must have startled one of them, because I actually got buzzed. At 10 o’clock at night, that is unheard of.
The next morning, I awoke to about a foot of snow and everything was covered in white, and at 5:30 in the morning, the hummingbirds were frantically fighting to get nectar from partially frozen feeders.
Hummingbirds consume mass amounts of food in order to maintain their high metabolisms. In situations where the food supplies are limited for some reason, like a surprise snow storm, they can find a perch and go into a torpor state to conserve its energy reserves, but for some reason, these hummingbirds remained frantically feeding all day.
I placed a fresh feeder under the porch where it would be sheltered for them, in order to up their food supplies. But, it was so cold that even that feeder was soon partially frozen. That didn’t stop them from feeding from it though. Below is a video I took from inside my cabin. My front porch was busy like this all day long. If nothing else, they provided good entertainment on a day when I was stuck indoors.
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Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a M.A. in Publishing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.
She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”); and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, are both available in both digital and print editions at most of your favorite book distributors.
When not writing, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. In addition to creating her own very small publishing house in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. As well as serving as judge for the Western Writers of America and sitting on the editorial team for Western State Colorado University and WordFire Press for the Gilded Glass anthology and editing Weird Tales: The Best of the Early Years 1926-27, under Kevin J. Anderson & Jonathan Maberry.
In her spare time, she is bird watching, or gardening, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.
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Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
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Tales from the Bird Sanctuary: Spring Preening
Posted: May 30, 2022 Filed under: Bird Watching, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary | Tags: Bird Watching, Birds, Hummingbirds, Tales from the Bird Sanctuary, Writing to be Read 6 CommentsIt’s hard work running a bird sanctuary. Make no mistake about it. But the rewards are awe inspiring and make it all worth it. I have a plethora of birds which visit the sanctuary of my property each year, and my visitors change with every season. (I wrote about the wide variety of bird visitors and shared images a while back. You can see that post here.) There’s always the regular day-to-day tasks of filling feeders, but this is the time of year when the hummingbirds start arriving and visiting birds expect baths to be available, that adds extra tasks to the sanctuary to-do list.
This week was my spring cleaning, when I spruce up the garden area, clearing away remnants of fall, cleaning out water features, and preparing the area for the coming bird season, because birds need a clean and healthy environment in which to thrive. Contrary to popular beliefs, they are not ‘dirty birds’. In fact, the bird baths and water features are my most popular attractions.
This year, I’m planning to renovate my main water feature, installing a new pump to create a waterfall, which the birds should absolutely love. This requires the old water to be pumped out and the whole thing cleaned out well before installing the new pump.
As I said before, the birds all love running water; any kind of spray or fountain will attract them, especially the hummingbirds. Today, since I was pumping out the water feature, I decided to see if I could attract some hummingbirds with the water, and hung the hose over a tree branch, suspending it above the ground, so that it made a good splash. This is a trick that usually works, and before I knew it I had two hummingbirds flirting with the idea of a spring shower, swooping back and forth near the stream of water coming from the hose.
The force of the water was now making an indentation where it hit the ground, and a small, shallow pool had begun to form, so I put my thumb over the end of the hose, creating a lighter spray. One hummingbird found a shallow spot, and literally sat in the pool and bathed. I had seen them take showers in water streams before, but I didn’t know hummingbirds actually bathed. If I’d had my phone, I could have gotten some excellent photos, but at the time, I didn’t want to take my thumb away from the end of the hose and scare him away with the sudden noise from the hard hit of the water. By the time I did run get my phone, she was long gone. But I was rewarded later with another young hummer, who danced around the flow of the hose as if she were performing a mid- air ballet, which I was able to photograph. She blends in pretty well with the background, so she’s kind of hard to see, so I outlined her in each one.
And it wasn’t only the humming birds who felt the need for a spring preening. The bird baths had a plethora of visitors, including the Robin and the Scrub Jay pictured below at the pedestal bird bath.
This post is my first official installment in the “Tales from the Bird Sanctuary” blog series. I posted a post last month about the bird sanctuary which received favorable response, so I thought my readers might have interest in hearing more about my little bird visitors, so I hope you have enjoyed this. The photos aren’t great. Birds don’t often pose for their photos and the lighting is often off. So, what do you think? Would you like to see more installments in this series? Is it worth it?
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Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing and a M.A. in Publishing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you.
She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”); and Where Spirits Linger (“The People Upstairs”). Her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets, and her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, are both available in both digital and print editions at most of your favorite book distributors.
When not writing, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. In addition to creating her own very small publishing house in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. As well as serving as judge for the Western Writers of America and sitting on the editorial team for Western State Colorado University and WordFire Press for the Gilded Glass anthology and editing Weird Tales: The Best of the Early Years 1926-27, under Kevin J. Anderson & Jonathan Maberry.
In her spare time, she is bird watching, or gardening, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.
______________________________________________________________________
Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, as a sampling of her works just for joining.
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The Rewards of Running a Bird Sanctuary
Posted: March 21, 2022 Filed under: Bird Watching, Children's Books, Writing, Writing Inspiration | Tags: Bird Watching, Children's Stories, Heather Hummingbird, Kaye Lynne Booth, Writing to be Read 7 Comments
I started watching the birds which visited my yard about fifteen years ago. My property is densely forested and the early morning chatter in the trees was difficult to ignore, so my gaze would naturally go up to the trees around me, and I was amazed at the number of different types of birds that were dropping by. So, I began to sit out in the yard to write on summer days, and that first summer, I kept a journal of the different birds that I saw,
When winter came around, I bought a bird feeder and some seed. I wasn’t sure how many birds were stick around during the cold months of Colorado winter, but I was pleased to learn that, although many birds migrated south for the winter, birds such as Chickadees, Nuthatches, and Blue Jays were year round residents and the Juncos appeared. When summer roles around, the winter birds clear out and various other species of birds take up summer residence or stop by on their way through.
I even have a group of resident Ravens, originally two pairs until one was taken out by a BB gun by a neighboring child. Now there are only three, but they are always around, and we talk back and forth to each other. (I don’t really speak Raven, but I fake it well.) Watching birds has brought me inspiration, and I have a whole children’s book series, in which the characters are birds and there is a moral lesson to each one, but I haven’t yet been able to publish it for lack of an illustrator. If you’re interested, you can read the story of how I had and lost both illustrator and publisher for the first book in the series, “Heather Hummingbird Makes a New Friend” here.
Little by little, I’ve added feeders and water features, provided habitat conducive to birds and wildlife. I now put out several types of seed feeders as well as suet feeders in the winter, and in the summer I add Hummingbird Feeders, as well as planting a variety of flowers, water features and bird baths in order to create a bird sanctuary. Over the years, I have viewed bird species in the double digit numbers: American Robins, Red Crossbills, Western Bluebirds, Western Tanangers, at least three different types of Hummingbirds, Juncos, Evening Grosbeaks, Cowbirds, Owls, Mountain Doves, Hairy Woodpeckers, Red-Shafted Flickers, I don’t know how many types of Sparrows and Finches, Gray-breasted Blue Jays, Red-tailed Hawks, and even Turkey Vultures. No matter what time of year, the birds who dip into my feeders always appreciate the plentiful bird seed and suet feeders that I put out, and they line up on the tree branches for their turn at the morning baths in the summer.
By this winter, word had gotten out and the bird sanctuary has become a busy place. I put out my Moultrie Digital Game Camera, which is motion activated, for a day and got thousands of photos of birds at one of the feeders. The feeder they are using is a birdbath in warm weather, but I filled it with Sunflower seeds during the cold spell we had recently, and it is obviously quite popular. Among the birds in the photos below are Evening Grosbeaks, Casin’s Finch and several small Sparrows at the feeder.
I get a lot of joy from watching the birds that visit my bird sanctuary. They are so much fun to watch as they wait their turn to grab a bite. Of course, at times they don’t wait. They just jump right in squawking and pecking to get their share whether it’s their turn or not, and mid-air skirmishes are not uncommon. Just the other day I watched as a Gray-breasted Blue Jay swooped in a broke off a very large piece of suet, then he turned to take off with it, making a quick get-away. The piece that he had in beak was so large that it weighed him down and he took an unexpected dive, almost to the ground, before catching himself and swooping off into the trees with his bounty. Blue Jays are known around here to be big bullies, so it was really kind of comical to watch as he struggled due to his own gluttony.
It is true that birds of a feather flock together, as Evening Grosbeaks swarm in on the feeders as a yellow and black mob, temporarily chasing off any little guys and interrupting their meal. The Blue Jays flock in too, but the Grosbeaks are the only ones who won’t back down from them. Juncos gang up on the ground, catching the seed others knock down from above. Birds like Mountain Chickadees, Nuthatches and American Robins, usually visit in smaller family groups, and the bird sanctuary has seen a lot of families raised, but even the Hairy Woodpeckers usually visit in pairs.
It’s been a busy place this winter, but I’m looking forward to the coming of spring and the arrival of a new batch of birds, especially the Hummingbirds, which never fail to keep things buzzing around the bird sanctuary. I always look forward to their spring greetings, as they actually come and say hello, hovering right in front of my face upon arrival as the weather warms. But Hummingbirds are a whole other post. If you’d like to hear about them, comment to let me know, and maybe I’ll write about them later in the year.
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Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life. She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you. She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); and Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”). Her western, Delilah, her paranormal mystery novella and her short story collection, Last Call, are all available in both digital and print editions.
In her spare time, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. She’s also the founder of WordCrafter. In addition to creating her own imprint in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. When not writing or editing, she is bird watching, or hiking, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.
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