bird watching

A few months ago, after reading a series of articles on petfoods at about.com, I gritted my teeth and switched from Purina Cat Chow to Nutro, which costs about twice as much (20# for $19.- vs 20# for $9). Because we have NINE cats, we go through a twenty pound bag in 2-3 weeks. For what it's worth, after about a month I noticed everyone's fur looks healthier, there is more playing going on, and less puking. Just like the article said would happen.

But this blog entry isn't about cats, it's about birds.

A couple months ago I was at the pet mart where I buy the Nutro and noticed several small bags stacked outside and marked 1/2 price. The clerk said they are out of date. Date stamping on catfood? Okay. So I bought them. It was the "diet" variety, that I'd been meaning to try anyway, since Booger goes 19.8 pounds and Cuz is right behind him, weighing in at 17.6 pounds herself. Well, they didn't like it. I don't know if it's the diet or the date stamp, but they mostly shoved it out of the bowl and bit the corners off the pieces. So I gave in and bought another bag of non-diet, non-outdated Nutro. Good enough. But who's going to eat this other stuff?

The birds?

Not really! I tossed a few experimental handfuls of diet Nutro out in the snow and my sparrows, cardinals, jays, flicker, downy woodpecker, juncos, titmice, and chickadees pretty much ignored it. Man. I guess the next step is either send it to the landfill for the dump rats or haul it out back behind the barn for the possums, raccoons & skunks. But wait!

Out my window I hear a lot of chipping and hollering, which means the starlings have returned. Now I have mixed feelings about starlings. They're an import, brought here from Europe, another stroke of genius, like kudzu and biting ladybeetles. Lots of birders make war on starlings because they bully small songbirds at feeders and take over nestboxes meant for bluebirds, they don't belong here. I sort of agree, but they can't help what they are, and I can't see being mad at the starlings because some idiot thought all the birds Shakespeare mentioned ought to be brought to the New World. They didn't fly here on their own.

So I look out my window, with mixed feelings, should I go outside and chase the starlings away from the bird seed I've scattered in the snow? That's all I see out there, starlings. But wait! They're pretty much ignoring the seed and eating... the DIET CAT FOOD! Whoo hoo! You can stay, guys. :)