The Birds! The Birds!

It must be spring! The osprey are back

Every April, we wait for the 15th. Not to do our taxes. We are those unpleasant people who get them done in February. I will not say we are smug about it, but I will say I like not having to think about it for an entire 1/3 of the year.

No. What happens on April 15th, is the ospreys come back. Every year, like clockwork. And every year, they look around for their nest, which they built up in one of the tall dead snags that are part of the forest at my friend’s house.

And every year, they look around and say, “Crap! Where the hell is the nest? We left it right there on that branch???? AND WHERE THE HELL IS THE BRANCH????”

It gets very windy in the winter around here.

So, they spend the spring building, building, building, occasionally heading down to Double Bluff beach and pick up a fish and fly it back to the garden, where they sit on a high branch, ripping it to shreds and making a bloody mess.

It is f*cking wild kingdom around here.

Meanwhile, the swallows come back at the same time and they have the best time swooping through the garden and eating all the bugs (huzzah!!!!) I mean, it’s probably a lot of work doing all that swooping and eating, but it looks like way more fun than hauling all those sticks to yet another dead tree to build a big ass nest, because they are going to need it, this osprey. They have to lay some eggs, hatch them and teach junior how to fly all in one summer.

Last fall, I think junior osprey was having some flight issues and crashed into the house (RIGHT?!?!?!?!) landed first on the patio umbrella, then on the patio and sat there for a while, before taking a big osprey dump (fish!!!!) and finally getting his act together and heading off to find eternal summer in California or Mexico, or where ever they go in the winter.

Don’t believe me? Lookee this!

Definitely a WTF look! (before he took a dump all over the patio, and another one on a chair)

In addition to the osprey, there are also great horned owls and barred owls in the neighborhood. The neighbors to the south took a picture of the great horned owl and some babies, which, alas, I cannot share here, but you should believe me that baby owls are adorable floofs and that you REALLY don’t want to mess with owl moms. She looks like she would pluck out your liver if you so much as look at her babies sideways. I suspect she may have been responsible for the leftover bunny parts in the garden. We are awaiting the coyote clean up crew.

Meanwhile in my garden…

There is so much to do and I really should have been at it more when the weather was lousy, but it was hard to make myself go out there. But today was sunny and in the mid 50s which is perfect weather to garden. My 4:00 raven was back, flying over the garden and gronking, in that raven-y sort of way, and then he sounded kind of fussy, and I looked up to see him chase a hawk from one of the tall cedars, and they flew off with the raven harassing the hawk.

Birds!

Well, I guess I can’t write today without confessing to the *tiniest* bit of schadenfreude over T*cker C*rlson getting fired on Monday. Alas, I suspect we have not seen the last of this toxic bit of malignant misogyny. And like all villains, they are usually worse when they return to power.

I leave you with this tribute to his “journalistic” career.

See ya next time! Check out The Panda Chronicles for more Panda Satire!