Juveniles

My Take

DiVoran Lites

We live on the brink of a wildlife refuge and have for 54 years. After we were here for a while, we knew we wanted to use our back yard and an attached half-acre for a bird sanctuary. 

We did some reading about it, and the most important thing to remember was not to use a poisonous weed killer in the yard. The popular brand does have some elements of poison in it even though their label says otherwise. We had more to learn, such as keeping the birdbath water fresh and putting out enough food for the small birds. The larger ones must shift for themselves. We see to it that there is plenty of seed in the hanging feeders, and God has provided plenty of hiding and nesting places. 

DiVoran, Our Porch

We love to watch wildlife from the porch or the dining room window. 

A few days ago, a noisy blue jay landed in a tree and gave me a talking-to. His bright, sharp voice pierced the air.  After a few seconds of speaking harshly to me, he swooped onto the bird feeder. His head ducked three times. That meant he got three tiny millet seeds. He flapped up to a high limb and pecked at the seeds to get the hulls off. 

The exact thing happened the next morning, and I wondered what I had done to offend him.  His white feathers looked whiter than older birds,’ and his neck was smaller than an adult bird. I concluded that he had come in the big batch of various baby birds that hatched last spring and was now beginning to sow his oats as teenagers sometimes do.  

Photo by DiVoran

Photo by DiVoran

  I had another glimpse of the beautiful bird early this morning. I think of it as a scrappy male, but maybe it is an insistent female. Either way, it and a squirrel had a confrontation over who would use the bath first. It was like a dance. When the squirrel headed for the bath for a drink of water, the Blue Jay flew a few feet away and landed on the fence. The squirrel raced back to its tree and sped up and down the trunk, and the juvenile came back and finally enjoyed his bath. 

Florida Squirrel Pixabay

We are so grateful to live close to wildlife. When we watch from the porch, small new actions thrill us. Our cat, Thea, is on the job for hours every day. She’s there to protect us from lizards, frogs, squirrels, birds, and our black racer, Blacky, who gets the most prolonged stares and the most cat-chatter. She does her job well.   

Today rain came down in bucketsful accompanied by thunder and lightning. We’ve had a lot of rain this year, blessedly no hurricanes yet. The juvenile Jay Bird came back in the storm for something more to eat. He screeched in his usually brazen way and flew from limb to limb.  He came back to the branch and issued a soft sound I’d never heard from a jay before. It sounded like three scared calls (for mommy.) I no longer think of him as reckless. Maybe he wants attention like anyone else. May he have a long and happy life and come back often.      

DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn.  She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”

Tags: Backyard Birding