I don’t like to really keep track, but I think I’m going through over ten pounds of sunflower seeds a week at my house. Sadly, don’t have quail here like I did at my apartment; just greedy, greedy pigeons and assorted smaller birds. This was on The Writer’s Almanac yesterday and it helps me to not begrudge the pigeons their meal.
The Underworld
by Sharon Bryan
When I lived in the foothills
birds flocked to the feeder:house finches, goldfinches,
skyblue lazuli buntings,impeccably dressed chickadees,
sparrows in work clothes, evenhummingbirds fastforwarding
through the trees. Some of themdisappeared after a week, headed
north, I thought, with the sun.But the first cool day
they were back, then gone,then back, more reliable
than weathermen, and I realizedthey hadn’t gone north at all,
but up the mountain, as invisibleto me as if they had flown
a thousand miles, yet in realityjust out of sight, out of reach—
maybe at the end of our livesthe world lifts that slightly
away from us, and returns onceor twice to see if we’ve refilled
the feeder, if we still remember it,or if we’ve taken leave
of our senses altogether.