A bird and two kittens

If you're like me at all, the garden isn't a garden unless it's full of birds. Well, not "full" because you need some room for plants, but there must be birds around. They add an extra sense of life to a garden, they eat insects, they sing for us, and amuse us with their antics (sometimes). There's also the excitement of seeing a species that you don't recognize, perhaps something that is only seen in your area while migrating, or is very hard to catch a glimpse of.

Sometimes the only chance you get to see these rarer birds is when something tragic happens, as with this Indigo Bunting that apparently flew into one of our windows.

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It's sad when this happens, and I think it happens to us once or twice a year -- a bird dies from a collision with our windows. There are also many less-severe collisions, usually by Mourning Doves who leave a big, feathery imprint on the window, walk around dazed for a couple of minutes, then fly away.

It's not that our windows are spotless. In fact, they're pretty dirty right now as they haven't been washed since the Summer. I'm not sure that washing them will cause more bird crashes, but I have a feeling that's so. Still, the windows need to be cleaned. The trouble is, if I start thinking about birds and windows, and the number of buildings in this country and around the world that have glass windows, it gets somewhat depressing. If one bird dies each year at every house, that's millions of birds every year just in the US!

That's a depressing thought, but perhaps even millions dead from window impacts is just a very small percentage of the total bird population, and isn't really a problem. I'm sure there are more significant causes of bird deaths (disease, loss of habitat, pollution, etc.) but it still saddens me greatly when I find a lifeless bird under one of my windows.

Since gardening is all about balance, including the balance between life and death, I'll balance out the rest of this post with a quick look at Super-whitey's kittens!

Tiny-toe is the boy:

Tiny-whitey is the girl:

She seems to be a little larger and more aggressive than her brother, but I expect that to change soon.

They're both starting to walk now, so things become more complicated. I'm not sure if we'll be able to keep them in the garage, but I definitely need to get a taller box, as they've managed to climb out once already. Once they're lost in the mess that is my garage right now, we may never find them!

I've got to start reading more about kittens and how to care for them, because I think it's going to start getting very interesting pretty soon.

They're just over 3 weeks old now.