Feed The Birds, Tuppence A Bag

As a gift to Lucienne, one of our cats, we put a bird feeder in the back yard post renovation. Since she already loved to sit by the window watching for the ones that would happen upon our fence, we figured it would be hours of enjoyment for her. And, we were right! She loves it. Actually, so does Dylan. One of his favorite activities to do with his Dad is to go out into the yard and fill it up. But, I don't think we realized how much we would need to do that.

Once word got out to the bird population on the street, they flocked to our yard! Once we filled the up the feeder, it would get emptied in just a few hours. I was truly amazed and baffled by how quickly we were running out of bird seed! Those poor birds must have been starving before we came around since no one else in the neighborhood must have been feeding them. I was just about ready to start a "feed the birds" fund to keep our feeder full and our birds fed. As an example of the mass amounts of birds we've been responsible for, here's a picture Mike took a few weeks ago. At first glance, it doesn't look like much but start counting the birds. There are A LOT in this frame. We estimate it to be around a 100.

Birds, Birds, Birds! (On the patio, ledge, feeder and on the grass)

We skipped filling the feeder last Thursday and then were away for a long weekend. After 4 days of not providing seed, we haven't seen birds in our yard since Mike and Dylan provided more food for them on Tuesday morning. I seriously hope we didn't starve all the sparrows! More likely they moved on to the next feeding hot spot but I don't think I'll be able to shake the worry and guilt until I see them return. At that point, I'll have to start passing the hat so that we can stay stocked with bird seed.