Bradford Makes Auntie M Spit Coffee

Let me take you back just a bit. For my father's birthday, I bought him a suet feeder. Weird, maybe, since he didn't ask for one, but it's what I decided to get the man who has a lot. He's always loved hummingbirds, but they aren't around much in Georgia in February, so I thought he might like seeing woodpeckers as well as hummingbirds.

Who knows what he really thought of the gift, but he dutifully put it up, and lo and behold, birds came to it. Surprisingly, it is my mother who seems to be fascinated with the thing. She called me the other day and said "there are birds on the feeder!"

Well, yeah, mom, that's why you put it out, so you'd get birds. No, she insisted, these aren't woodpeckers, they are birds. Not the most biologically correct statement, granted, but I knew what she meant.

Then she went on, "they are black on the head and gray on the bottom; what are they?"

Hmmm. With such an accurate description, I can tell you that they are... birds. I think I'll get her a bird book for Mother's Day.

Fast forward to today. I get a call this morning, and before I could say hello, she gushed, "what red-bellied bird is out there by the feeder?"

Can you tell me a little more about the bird?

"Brown back, red belly, short beak."

Do you see the improvement in her bird identification skills in just a short time? I was actually quite impressed, but after digging for some more information, I was still unable to help her, but more determined to get her a bird book.

Bradford to the rescue. "Ask her how big it is." I did, and it was about as big as her hand. "Oh," he said, "then it's not a penguin."

When the story was repeated to Auntie M, she rushed to the sink to avoid making a mess of her coffee.