Spring

I love springtime. Today I spotted two birds outside my kitchen window. You know the feeling when you see two birds in spring - tey usually give you that wonderful sense of all is right with the world....Well NOT so this time. Upon checking the trusty Tory Peterson's "Field Guide to the Birds", these two turned out to be European Starlings. As Mr. Peterson says, "a gregarious, garrulous, short-tailed blackbird with a meadowlark shape". They were purle iridescent with yellow pointy bills and red legs. That should have been a sign that they were not your love in the springtime sort of pair.

They were foraging around on the ground when the larger of the two happened upon a great, and I am sure tasty, insect. He had it in his yellow bill when the other bird spotted the prize. Well he just jumped right over there on his red legs to the larger one, body bumped him sending him into a full double body roll thus giving up the delicacy! The smaller one quickly seized the prize and gulped it down.

It wasn't over then there is more... after this episode they continued to forage on the ground. Now mind you they weren't timidly looking around for predators like other birds usually do, they were very hell bent on their mission to find food at all cost. Now their yellow bills were long and pointed and well suited for digging in the dirt. Suddenly while I am staring fascinated with this boldness of the two, the smaller one is tugging furiously with something it has found while digging in the dirt! I don't know what it found, but the larger one came over to help. That was too much for the smaller one (I am thinking they must be siblings) to handle and he pounced on the larger one again! That was the end ...the thing in the ground was lost so they moved on to another area but not before I was thouroughly entertained and refreshed knowing that truely all is right with the world indeed.