Some people love to manicure everything, including their trees. They work all spring to cut out the dead branches, and maybe they work a little too hard, because here's a secret: I've watched birds bounce up and down on dead branches. The leafless, dry branches act like a teeter-totter (the birds working with the force of the tree) or a trampoline (the birds alight and then boing down, up, down, up, before ascending).
It makes me wonder if our brand of perfectionism isn't all that perfect for everyone else in our sphere of existence.
14 comments:
You make the most fascinating observations. Now that you mention it, I've seen this happen with the birds and the branches, but I never would have noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out.
The saddest thing for me is to see one of those trees with all of its branches so lopped off that it is no more than a stubby trunk. That is so humiliating for a tree. Why do people do it? Why?
You are right. It's nowhere near perfect.
Thanks for not pointing out that I had typed DREAD instead of DEAD.
Oh typos.
We have many of those ugly trees in our area, thanks to power lines and happy pruners.
I actually didn't notice. And if I had I wouldn't have told you on your blog anyway.
I've never noticed that before. I need to look more closely. I am probably guilty of pruning all the dead branches. Well, unless they are high up and then I'm too lazy. The birds will have to teeter-totter up there. :-)
I LOVED the last line of your post, Alicia: "The birds will have to teeter-totter up there." That's classic.
I will never hack the branches of my trees (or at least, I wouldn't if I had any trees) in the hopes that one day, I will see this bird.
I think there are mourning doves in my neighborhood. They perch on my roof. I thought they were pigeons, but now I think they are doves. They are always coo-ing to each other.
I prefer to call them morning doves. (And no one knows about the switch, unless I type the word out.)
But "mourning dove" is so much more poetic, what with the symbol of peace being juxtaposed with a symbol of death and all...
I have such intelligent friends.
By the way, I saw two mourning/morning doves yesterday.
Your blog got me thinking about morning doves and actually noticing them. I have at least one fat little visitor to my bird feeder everyday. She comes to eat and torment SiSi through the glass door.
I'm guessing SiSi doesn't particularly like the dove.
Nope. SiSi doesn't.
My nephew was here the other day when the dove was feasting. I said it was a mourning dove and he said, oh, that's because they come around in the MORNING. So, it looks like they shall be known as morning doves. :-)
I want birds to use my trees as trampolines. All they do is gorge on my bird feeder so it's empty within a day of me filling it.
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