How to Help Birds

This is not a good picture but it illustrates what birds want during this droughty autumn-styled-winter: water. There are three birds, robins, crowded on the clay water dish and another, on the left, flying in. Right next to this water stand/bird bath is the hanging cake of suet that used to be the star attraction at my bird buffet. No longer. The very second I put some water out, birds surrounded the water, perching, drinking, flapping, flying in. Birds are thirsty. No wonder they'd rather eat berries than suet or seed.

Set out a dish or bowl of water if you love your wild creatures. For them it's in short supply.

Meanwhile I don't dare start up a nice cozy outdoor fire. The other day I panicked seeing thick woodsmoke crossing Highway FF but it was a homeowner -- I could see him -- burning leaves and wisely attending to the fire. Lack of water is not only causing thirst but the woods are a tinderbox.

The Art of the Drought

I like to walk on cooler mornings at Glassberg Conservation Area on the beaten and sometimes challengingly muddy path around the pretty three-acre (man-made) lake I sometimes fished in, that I privately called my own Walden Pond, and last week was stunned to see the lake dried out to practically nothing, surrounded by a Missouri moonscape of cracked mud and dead water lily plants.

In this picture you can see from the orange gauge where the water level used to be.

The lake is a tenth or less than what it was! The former sky mirror that had a whole bunch of us (or at least one person every day) hiking in half a mile carrying gear to fish there! The dead trees stuck up from it like wooden knitting needles. Fish remain in the increasingly scarce, warm water--jumping, as if to say, "Save us!" The Department took down the sign warning anglers about the daily catch limits.

Barely recognizing it and not quite believing it I crunched my boots across the desert landscape close to what water is left.

Drought's First Casualty

I heard "CRAACK!" and turned just in time to see this fully-leafed branch from the huge twin oak peel off and land, completely blocking our only access road. Thank God I wasn't under there and my car was garaged. My neighbor and I were now trapped so I phoned the handymen at once. They said, first thing in the morning. With time to inspect it I tried to find out what had gone wrong with a branch that looked healthy.

What looks like interior rot is the tree's heartwood, and in any tree it's dead already, having done its job. As you know, a tree feeds itself through the wood just beneath the bark, and its concentric rings are what hold it up. It's like a hollow metal pole; its strength doesn't depend on its core. I didn't see real rot. And a sick or bug-infested branch wouldn't have such healthy greenery.

It was, however, a horizontal branch on a very old tree, richly weighted with other leafy branches, after two consecutive years of severe drought. In June we didn't get a full inch of rain here (the city got a bit more than we did). Our towns cancelled Independence Day fireworks for the first time ever because of the fire hazard, and I hope the kids shooting off fireworks for fun aren't doing it anywhere near our dry-as-dust woods and fields.

Where the branch peeled away

Next morning the handymen chainsawed the branch and also amputated the branch from the redbud across the lane that broke beneath the weight of the oak branch. The twin oaks must be among the oldest trees on the property; they are 80 feet high at least and a glorious sight as you drive up toward the house. Branches do fall from them sometimes, but usually only dead ones. Hope not to see any more like this.

I Never Give Up

Sure the birdbath bowl was badly cracked (see August 30) so I bought a new bowl at a concrete works, and the birds gratefully took baths and drinks, but that old, more artistic bowl, considering I couldn't move it except to flip it over, sat there and I thought, I hate to give up, I hate to give up, so for the fourth time, to the hardware store. I simply confessed to the clerk: "I'm trying to fix a concrete birdbath. Nothing works," and she led me to concrete putty stuff and DAP quick-crete. I patched a big chip at the bowl's rim with the putty stuff. Bet you can't find the patch in the picture! (It's at the 11 o'clock point.) Then all gloved up, with much unskill I laid readymixed QuikCrete on with a trowel and let it dry overnight. The next morning I poured water into it. IT HELD. Glory be! Some spots were not quite perfectly covered. so I applied a second coat just now, with great skill and in five minutes. When it's dry I'll sand it a bit and find somebody to help me lift it onto the pedestal, and it will be just like old days for the birds and me.

Cloudburst

On an August afternoon, when it'd been over 90 degrees every day for a solid month, and was pushing 100, it rained for a solid fifteen minutes, then it rained for another fifteen minutes, hard, with the sun shining. Dodging the huge raindrops I ran outside seeking a rainbow, but didn't see any. But from my porch, where I and the camera could stay dry, I saw my birdbath and bird feeder bathed in sun and rain.

Snake Suicide

This snake in the creek had its head plunged into the mud underwater. Oddest thing. It did not look dead -- it was still holding its curves, its musculature, and wasn't limp -- but I didn't poke it to make sure. Using the photograph I ID'd it as a Northern Water Snake, Nerodia sipedon, a common Missouri snake, and harmless. Approximately 16 inches long, this one must have been young.

You can see that the water here was about an inch deep, and and because of the heat and drought, the water left in the creek had warmed and thickened. I suppose the snake was trying to keep cool -- it is cold-blooded, after all --but I also wondered if I was wrong and it was dead, and the long, long drought that kept closing in, drying the creek down to nothing -- had driven it to suicide.