Friday, February 22, 2013

A true bird lover

We were walking under the century-old willow oak trees by the stock pond when we found a dead mockingbird on the ground.  It had obviously been shot only hours before.  My dad became angry and said, "If they don't care abut birds, they better understand that killing songbirds is against the law."

At the time I had not been aware that federal law protects almost all birds, although some are allowed to be hunted  during designated seasons. I did know my dad's love for birds and how much he hated to see them killed.  He always had a purple martin house with compartments and he would threaten to kill the cats when one managed to catch and kill one of the martins.

I guess the best example of his love for birds is when we found  a quail's nest with about l0 eggs in it.  The hen had either abandoned the nest for some reason or had been killed.  We took a chance that the eggs might still hatch and put them under a setting hen. I think it was about six or seven that hatched, and we built a pen to protect the tiny birds.  They grew and left the pen one by one.  Most people would have kept them until they were grown and then  killed and ate them.  My dad never considered it.

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