New England bluebirds will attempt to raise three broods of chicks each summer. Often, their efforts produce five or six eggs in the first effort, four or five in the second, and perhaps four again in the third.
As summer progresses, its heat fosters predation by the blowfly, which lays its eggs in the nesting material, usually during the second nesting. The eggs turn into larvae that attach themselves to the underparts of the babies and kill them by sucking their blood. This second batch of four hatched two or three days ago and passed careful inspection as their mother watched from a nearby branch.
When the chicks were back safe in the nest, the mom quickly resumed ferrying small bugs to their gaping mouths. With luck and hard work, at the end of summer the pair of bluebirds will have raised perhaps 12 chicks, who will entertain the owner of these hands all the way to Thanksgiving with their personable activities and soft whistles as they feed and chase each other about the yard.
4 comments:
a germane post most certainly, Twain wrote about bluebirds--cool!
Mark Twain
Tom Sawyer Abroad
Page 13
"Tom Sawyer, this ain't no welkin, it's a balloon."
"Well, now, who SAID it was a welkin, smarty?"
"You've wrote it on the letter, anyway."
"What of it? That don't mean that the balloon's the welkin."
"Oh, I thought it did. Well, then, what is a welkin?"
I see in a minute he was stuck. He raked and scraped around in his mind, but he couldn't find noth- ing, so he had to say:
"I don't know, and nobody don't know. It's just a word, and it's a mighty good word, too. There ain't many that lays over it. I don't believe there's ANY that does."
"Shucks!" I says. "But what does it MEAN? -- that's the p'int. "
"I don't know what it means, I tell you. It's a word that people uses for -- for -- well, it's orna- mental. They don't put ruffles on a shirt to keep a person warm, do they?"
"Course they don't."
"But they put them ON, don't they?"
"Yes."
"All right, then; that letter I wrote is a shirt, and the welkin's the ruffle on it."
I judged that that would gravel Jim, and it did.
"Now, Mars Tom, it ain't no use to talk like dat; en, moreover, it's sinful. You knows a letter ain't no shirt, en dey ain't no ruffles on it, nuther. Dey ain't no place to put 'em on; you can't put em on, and dey wouldn't stay ef you did."
"Oh DO shut up, and wait till something's started that you know something about."
"Why, Mars Tom, sholy you can't mean to say I don't know about shirts, when, goodness knows, I's toted home de washin' ever sence --"
"I tell you, this hasn't got anything to do with shirts. I only --"
"Why, Mars Tom, you said yo'self dat a letter --"
"Do you want to drive me crazy? Keep still. I only used it as a metaphor."
That word kinder bricked us up for a minute. Then Jim says -- rather timid, because he see Tom was get- ting pretty tetchy:
"Mars Tom, what is a metaphor?"
"A metaphor's a -- well, it's a -- a -- a metaphor's an illustration." He see THAT didn't git home, so he tried again. "When I say birds of a feather flocks together, it's a metaphorical way of saying --"
"But dey DON'T, Mars Tom. No, sir, 'deed dey don't. Dey ain't no feathers dat's more alike den a bluebird en a jaybird, but ef you waits till you catches dem birds together, you'll --"
"Oh, give us a rest! You can't get the simplest little thing through your thick skull.
Thanks, Chrisnyc. MT often mentioned bluebirds, for example in "Life on the Mississippi."
I have not read much Twain, but I do appreciate this dialog on metaphors in 'abroad', besides the blue bird comment.
Looking through your archives I see that you may be able to tell me what my sister who is going to alaska tomorrow, may be treated to in the skies... please tell me, so I may pass it on to her.
You must mean "A Tramp Abroad"?
And assuming you mean what your sister will see in the sky over Alaska, I predict bald eagles, by the score.
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