Thursday, July 3, 2008

Bluebird Story

Today's Greeting

Virginia has some wonderful wineries - many of them close by. One of my customers at Backyard Boutique is an artist, and she uses one for her "studio." She put up a bluebird trail and has been monitoring 8 boxes, with wonderful results. But today I received a distress call at home. She went to check one of the boxes, with 5 chicks that were ready to fledge, and saw blood smeared over the box, and looking with her dental mirror, saw at least 2 of the babies' - hearts still beating. The mama was "dive-bombing" her as she tried to look. Afraid the babies were injured or that the male was injured and lying over them so that they couldn't fledge, she called me for advice. I met her and we drove out. Sure enough, the front and inside the hole were all smeared with red. Since it was time for these babies to fledge anyway, I carefully opened the box - to see 3 fat little babies looking quizzically at me, and two tails of two that were turned the other way. All were fine. Mama was scolding, then I saw the male in the tree. Oh what fun - when my eyes shifted from that tree to the next one, the tree nearest the box was full of some kind of berries that looked exactly like blackberries - huge tree - FULL of berries. OK, there's your blood. We had the best time over it - almost went down to have a glass of chardoney to toast the little ones. All is well. Before we left, I wanted to grab a couple of shots of the grapes - here's one, with a tiny visitor. Boy, he has it made!

I had to "paint" the photo a little.

13 comments:

kjpweb said...

How great is that! The redberry murders! Cheers, Klaus

Mary said...

What a great story! I'm glad it was a happy ending :-)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful image of the grapes Helen.
So, "Alls well that ends well".
And rounded off with a Chardonney, nice work {:)

John Theberge said...

Humorous story with a happy ending, gotta like that.

Eve said...

A beautiful greeting...a wonderful story (WHEW!!!) and your chipping sparrow artwork is STUNNING!!! I love it!
Thanks Helen!

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Helen: What a great story about the birds and the mystery. You did a wonderful job with the sparrow photo.

Anonymous said...

Whew...glad this had a happy ending! We have several bluebird boxes along our fence. After a year or so, one of the boxes became a home and now a second one has too. It's interesting to wonder why they selected those and not the others. Hopefully, they too will be used one day.

Stacey Olson said...

LOL(grin) thanks Helen, Love the painting effect.. really made the bird stand out... thanks for sharing.

NCmountainwoman said...

Oh, what a marvelous story. I loved it. I also love the effect of painting the photograph in the vineyard. It is lovely.

The Birdlady said...

Klaus - now that you've come up with a catchy title, shuld I write a book?

Mary - me too! I was dreading looking in that box.

Roy - Thanks.

John - It was funny after it was over.

Eve - Thanks - I love the doing the painting - And they seem to be more "sellable" that way...I think a lot of people still don't reaally consider photography art...

FG - Thanks, as always.

June - if they are closer together than 300 ft, you probably won't get bluebirds in the others - but the truth is, bluebirds can't read, so they don'e know it. Maybe you will have a whole village of BBs. I wish that for you.

Stacey - Thank you, and thanks for being so faithful in stopping by to look.

Carolyn, thank you, thank you!

The Birdlady said...

Barb - As always, thank you. Thank you also for helping me make my blog and your encouragement! Have a great vacation! (You coming by here again?)

Jayne said...

Oh how funny Helen! That story is priceless!

abb said...

I'm back and so very glad to get in on your latest post. Happy endings are the best! Congratulations to your friend's successful fledgling launch.