It's been a while I've been blogging here and we are that much closer to the extinctions of many of our Lone Star States, and worlds, birds and animals. During that period I found the wings and a few body parts of a Mockingbird on my front porch. Yes, a Texas Mockingbird, one of our Texas State Birds.
This Mockingbird was further distinguished, I believe, in being one we had found as a fledgling victim of a cat attack. He was the only survivor of his clutch, and we hand fed him, rehabilitated him, then released him. How do I know this was the same one? Well, I've dealt with Texas birds and animals for over six decades, this ain't my first rodeo.
He showed up the next year and hung out around our bird feeders, he was less fearful of us than the rest of the birds, though he wouldn't come to us, as if we'd have asked him to. We're not talking Walt Disney here, people.
The next year he attracted a mate, after several days and nights of singing and stomping one of the treetops in our back yard flat. Hell I've done that, too, when romancing a woman.
They set up their nest in a loquat tree in our front yard, the front yard we'd given him flying lessons in before his release. We worried and watched and ran the neighbors cats off, fearing a repeat of the attack that had nearly killed him before and had left him ours to raise.
Somehow, they made it through the first year, and the next, and a third, with him strafing everything that came into the yard except us, his protectors, his foster family.
I'm not even sure how many years he held out, but there were a number of them. It may have been old age done him in, or the sheer numbers of cats that trespassed here. I found his remains on my front porch. I wrote a poem a few years ago and titled it "Who cries for the birds?" This old man does.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I wonder when it will once again be a Sin to Kill a Mockingbird in Texas. eap for our future wen putting these birds on a kids life list will be impossible. I lost at least 4 mockingbird fledglings. I think it was more but coud not tell after the cats worked them over. I had ten kills in my back yard. No sparrows. Only doves and mockingbirds as far as I could tell. Nature comes so close into Angleton we had a vulture clean a squirrel on my inner city street. Cars were having to go around the site. The vulture finally put the meal in a yard and slowly finished it. It goes to show we have all kinds of birds come under the knife of feline liberty. These pet owners & their cats enjoy special rights denied the rest of do to civic order. Now our civic needs demand we change this paradigm as citizens we must gather our voices to move beyond the written word. We must bitch out loud. Write a call your Senator and Reps. Our state Rep Dennis Bonnen(979-848-3906) is especially ignoring thsi situation. In facthe willnot comment in the issue. Let' all gang up in Lake Jackson. Send letters to the Brazosport Facts our local paper,thefacts.com. Call Lake Jackson city hall 979-415-2400& tell them your a birder boycotting Lake Jackson as a birding destination because in their arrongance and ignorance Lake Jackson allows cats to roam free by exemption to the leash law.
Have you ever noticed when the cat enablers begin to prattle on about our bird and animal losses being "The Circle of Life," like their pets actually belonged in our ecosystem? It makes me want to shake them until their teeth rattle.
That's good advice about writing the paper, Pard. I need to put something in the Galveston paper asking how many tourists travel there to see the cats.
Thanks so much for your comment on http:mypurplemartinblog.com
And thanks so much for helping to educate folks on the need to keep cats indoors!
Oh, there you are, Ma'am. I was afraid I'd lost you on another post during my moderation.
I appreciate the kudos and I'm sending them right back. You orate very well from an apple crate.
Post a Comment