I like to hear them small birds singin', merrily upon their branches
My street is all giant trees and old dense bushes, and mornings have become very loud with the birds who inhabit them.
The current residents include:
Mourning Doves
Blackbird(heard but not seen)
American Crow(we have a MASSIVE population, which pleases me greatly)
Anna's Humingbird
Bushtit
Mockingbird
American Sparrow
Green Parrot of some stripe or other(he is a very noisy fellow, I must say)
And the park nearby has a TON of Mallards, as well as a pair of Muscovy Ducks and some kind of Loon. I had a guest over the weekend, and we fed the ducks. They are delightfully tame and talkative.
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I have always been fond of birds, though I frown upon those who cage songbirds. Chickens and ducks are content to stay where the food is plentiful and the nesting box is warm, but a songbird never seems pleased by a cage. I also think birds are sort of dirty things to keep indoors. I like them outside where they belong, on the wing.
When I was a little girl, my mother and I hand fed some poor starlings who were "rescued" from a nest and then fed CHICKEN. They were taken from the ninny who messed about with their nest, handed over to my mother to care for and raise and we fed them properly, with smushed up mealworms and whatnot. One of the four died anyway, but the three who survived were released into a local park, to grow fat on breadcrumbs. The hopped very tentatively from the cage, and stuck very close for several hours, but eventually, they took wing and did not return.
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More fun with birds: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/25/dawn-chorus.html
"To create the videos for the project, Coates took slowed-down birdcalls and taught various people to sing them in their slowed-down state. He then filmed them singing the songs in ordinary situations or 'habitats' and sped up the footage again so the birdcalls are at normal speed again. The result is remarkably similar to the original. "