Tuesday, July 28, 2009

A new neighbor?


Years ago, Itinerant Cryptographer purchased this birdhouse for me on one of his many trips to California. For the past several years, we had placed it on a low-hanging branch in front of our house. One year, a bird finally showed interest and filled it with twigs. Unfortunately, said bird also spotted our dog, loud and barking, and fled soon after. I emptied out the twigs, but the birdhouse remained vacant.

After we moved, I hung the birdhouse out back. We don't have any trees in our yard, so a wooden slat was the closest thing that I could find. After hanging outside for a year, I finally noticed a medium-sized songbird taking an interest in the birdhouse. I called to Kerm excitedly.

"Look! Look at that bird! He's checking out our birdhouse."

Kerm and I watched the bird for some time. He went inside the birdhouse and poked his head out, scanning this way and that.

"He's checking out the house, just like we did!" said Kerm.

The bird climbed on top of the birdhouse.

"Look, he climbed the stairs," announced Kerm.

On the roof of the birdhouse, the bird craned its neck to take a good look around and poked his head through the slats of the fence.

"He's checking out the neighbors!" said Kerm, laughing.

I'm not sure if our visitor will be back. I walked back to the birdhouse tonight and peeked inside. The house is still vacant. Like so many other homes today, this one may require several "walk-throughs" before we get a permanent resident. But if we do, I'll follow up with another picture. Next time, I might even manage to identify the type of bird!


Photo credit: Mama Joules

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