Terri Webster Schrandt invites us to celebrate Feed the Birds Month during Sunday Stills this week. She writes her post to educate us.
“The Sunday Stills photo challenge has shared this theme three years in a row to educate the public on the seasonal journeys of birds, and help bring awareness to keeping wild birds fed during the harsh winter months in the northern hemisphere.”
Terri Webster Schrandt
She asked if we are bird feeders. I laughed and have to admit that I’m not a fabulous feeder. And my knowledge level about birds nears zero so I can’t educate you.
Becky B.’s challenge is for our odd photos this month. Most of my photos today are odd in number more than in content. I didn’t see odd, out-of-place birds. 99% of my pictures are square even if you don’t find anything odd about them.
My Choices for This Week
“We have an uncanny ability to make birds do what we want them to do. In Blood Simple there’s a shot from the bumper of a car and it’s going up this road and a huge flock of birds takes off at the perfect moment.”
Joel Coen
My pictures come more from my travels and are taken at various times of the year. We never enjoyed great success making friends with birds with all the cats in our neighborhood in CA. The bird feeders dropped seeds and we got wildflowers from it, though. What remained in the feeder got moldy. Not a big success, but food is pretty plentiful in CA. They love cat food.
Here in Prescott tiny birds flit all around us darting in and out of feeders faster than I can pull out my iPhone to snap their photos. I swear there was a bird on that first feeder when I snapped the picture.
Birds don’t just need our help in the winter. We sat outside at a Panera Restaurant on Mooney Street, a busy Visalia commercial street. Right over the fence walking on the 110-degree sidewalk, this duck looked terribly out of place, like a bird out of water. With traffic streaming by, a little girl and I got up at about the same time to see what we could do to help it.
The picture was taken with my iPhone 6, cropped in Adobe Bridge
Anxious Me
My friends, ANXIOUS to fly to the WARM PLACE FAR AWAY, left with SUNUP.
“TOO COLD. GROUND HARD. NO WORMS. FOOD BOX EMPTY SEVEN SUNS.”
The humans who put seed in it every day did not come out of their BIG BOX.
Yesterday LOTS of HUMANS at the BIG WATER SANDY PLACE stopped to feed me. Bread, birdseed, chips.
I told my friends, “NOT FAR AWAY BIG WATER LOTS HUMANS.”
Even Jasmine said, “WARM PLACE FAR AWAY.”
I flew over to the BIG WATER SANDY PLACE today. I walked and walked. NO HUMANS. NO FOOD. COLD WIND. SCARED
Randy and I found this lone bird walking anxiously on the sandy parking lot at Warren Dunes State Park near Bridgeman, MI on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. In October Randy and I felt chilly dressed in full winter clothes. We lasted about 20 minutes walking around the deserted place. No one else except this lone bird was there. We felt bad that we had nothing to give it. He felt worse, I’m sure.
This time he had nothing in his mouth, no fries, burger, or bun. However, judging from his fearlessness, I think he felt like he owned the place. He had the courtesy not to beg, so my guess is that he found plenty on his own. I overcropped this picture and sacrificed clarity, but I was too slow to get him still on the ground. The picture was taken with my iPhone 12S and super cropped in Adobe Bridge.
Feeding Frenzy in Hawaii
Kauai, where we took Cindy to Hawaii, roosters were everywhere. The rooster “is the leader in the chicken population, where they are out of control.” Roosters
Facts About Wild Hawaiian Chickens
- Chickens have few natural predators on the Hawaiian islands, and this has surely lead to their increasing numbers.
- Humans feeding them doesn’t help the situation either.
- Another thing that keeps the populations high is that under Hawaii state law, all wild birds are protected. This includes the roosters designated Red Jungle Fowl. Roosters
WWE
13 ducks diving for food WWE
WWE
Other Challenges that Inspired SUNDAY STILLS CHALLENGE
- CARROT RANCH 99 WORD CHALLENGE Anxious
- CELL PIC SUNDAY
- CITY SONNET COLOR CHALLENGE
- CMMC
- SQUARE ODDS
- SUNDAY STILLS
- WATER WATER EVERYWHERE #112
UPDATES ON ALWAYS WRITE
- If you host or participate regularly in a challenge and would like an interview on Always Write contact me.
- Story Chat has a new story TOMORROW. KL Caley’s “HANDLE WITH CAUTION.”
- For a list of topics for WQW 2022 check out my page. WOTY was a popular week. Last week’s post may beat it! See how you can use your friends’ quotes in your posts.
- PPAC is your choice of public art topic every week. We have had a surge of fountains recently. Be sure to check out some of the other participant’s entries. That makes it fun.
Now it’s your turn.
Thanks so much for stopping by and having fun with photo and writing challenges.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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