[Mnbird] Freeborn County birds

[Allen Batt]

  It was the kind of November weather that is outlawed in 27 states. I’m not sure how much snow we’d been gifted. I reckon most people thought it had been enough, but the moisture was welcome. The snow came six weeks after the first junco had appeared in the yard. I know it was of sufficient quantity to entice pheasants into the yard along with a large mixed flock of blackbirds—Red-winged Blackbirds, Rusty Blackbirds, Common Grackles, and Brown-headed Cowbirds. That flock mingled with starlings on the ground under the feeders and engaged in a feeding frenzy. A lovely young opossum ambled through that feathered world, frightening Eurasian Collared-Doves into flight.
  As I watched from my window, a Fox Sparrow sorted through the leaves beneath a shrub. I noticed a frantic fluttering nearby. Ridiculously underdressed for temperatures cold enough that I needed to use a fur-lined tea cup, I trudged through the snow. I was on a mission. I discovered a female House Sparrow’s foot had become lodged in a tiny fork in the bush. I freed the bird with little effort and no apparent harm. If birds have nightmares, she might have some. I know some would say, “Why save a House Sparrow? There are enough House Sparrows.”
  That’s not true. We’d have been one House Sparrow short.

Al Batt