Do you ever feel like you're on a runaway train? Dashing from one stop to the next. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. Over scheduled? Over connected? Spread thin to the point of feeling veneered. Well he thinks his layers are coming unglued. Did he mix his metaphors? Refer to himself in the third person? Yet, another sign of a mind in disarray.
Of late, morning coffee is just something he guzzles on his way to work. This A.M., he put the brakes on and savored on the front porch, listening to the birdsong. The one that caught his ear above the others, was the ca-ca-ca-cough of the cuckoo. High overhead in the canopy where it likes to hang out.
Yellow-billed cuckoos eat insects, especially the tent caterpillars that are so abundant, crawling through the treetops at this time of the year. For a brief time late yesterday, Rachael became a cuckoo's bird feeder, if only it had taken the bait.
He wonders what the fuzzy little things taste like? Are they something to savor or guzzle? Dare he try one? Oops, yet another sign of a mind in disarray.
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6 comments:
I've been hearing the Yellow-billed cuckoo daily, sometimes two, too...:) Did you know they lose their belly lining from consuming these caterpillars, but by the time they regurgitate the lining, they've already formed another one? A fascinating if graphic tidbit from WV birding marathon.
And yes, slowing down is good.
Oh man, the wars my poor dad has waged on tent caterpillars. Do we have Yellow-bills in Vermont? I'm sure he'd like to get some help...
Hello Vickie. How was your trip?
Thanks for the tidbit on cuckoos. I'm glad I've already eaten breakfast.
My schedule has been just nuts, but there is calm at the end of the storm. I can see it coming.
Hello dear Gwen!
Yes, please tell your father that 98 percent or more of all tent caterpillars are eaten by the returning migratory birds. There are yellow-billed cuckoos in Vermont, but if they don't eat them, one of the other birds will. Spring migration is specifically timed to fill the trees with birds just when there are lots of caterpillars for them to eat.
If this wasn't the case, we would be knee-deep in tent caterpillars after a few years, which we are not. Nature keeps a balance. Those tents created by the caterpillars are really just natural bird feeders. I've watched cedar waxwings eat their bellies full on occasions.
Good to hear from you.
Lyn
Don't forget that tent caterpillars do little harm to the trees they live in. They will eat every leaf and not touch a single flower, so the tree just re-leafs and gets right back to business growing fruits.
God I love you Rikki.
Yet, another reason not to torch the nest!
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