Birdie of Mississippi

NEW POSTS By Peggy Williams AKA Birdie of Mississippi This morning I posted several articles to my blog.  I haven't added my photos to the articles yet, but since I was behind on posting, I decided that as one of my New Year's Resolutions I wanted to get all my articles on my "Birdie of Mississippi Blog" and get current.  I have found that writing is one of my passions and whether anyone reads them or not writing releases creativity and a voice that cries out from within me to be released.  There are so many wonderful things in life that when I focus my eyes and ears on them I can see them and share them with others!  By researching for my articles I have learned so much about birds, trees, bees and many, many other things.  Learning leads me to happiness and a lifting of my spirits even on the grayest of days.  If you are reading these words, I pray that God will bless you with His Joy and that you will enjoy this day that God has given us! FROM...

COURAGEOUS BIRDS By PEGGY WILLIAMS AKA Birdie of Mississippi While watching a PBS episode of the British “Antiques Roadshow” I saw a lady who had brought a framed photograph of a pigeon which quickly caught my attention.   As she explained her story of coming to possess the photograph she shared that the pigeon was one owned by her father.   The pigeon’s name was Cologne and he had served with the National Pigeon Service and had carried out over 100 missions with Bomber Command.   Cologne had received a metal of bravery in 1947 called the Dickin Medal from the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals with a citation that read: “For homing from a crashed aircraft over Cologne although seriously wounded, whilst serving with the RAF in 1943”.   The Dickin Metal is the size of a normal soldier’s metal and according to Wikipedia.com was given to the owner of the bird or animal for “conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving in military conflict.”...

BUT, BIRDIE IT’S COLD OUTSIDE By Peggy Williams AKA Birdie of Mississippi Yes, it’s cold outside, but January and February are the months that Birdies begin to look for sites to build their new spring nests to nurture baby birds.   It is also a good time for Birders to go ahead and put out birdhouses for spring nesting. By putting birdhouses out early, this will ensure that they would be available as temporary shelter for birds should we have a cold snap, bad weather or as a refuge from predators.   Birds that have more than one brood of birds nest early so that they can have time to do it again later in the season.   You will begin to see them scouting your yard any time now to see if it would be a safe place for their babies.   If you have bird houses already hanging, it would be good to clean out any old nesting material that may still be there from last year and scrub the house with one part bleach to nine parts water.   Rinse the house thor...

SONGS ABOUT BIRDS By Peggy Williams AKA Birdie of Mississippi While taking my morning walk I wear my headphones to listen to music on my phone and it helps increase my pace while walking.   I don’t listen to music the whole walk because I enjoy listening to the morning chatter and song of the birds in the neighborhood. But yesterday as I walked one of the songs talked about “singing to Jesus” and the morning songs of the birds became praise to God for the new day we had been given to enjoy.   As this thought took hold I began to wonder about pop songs that had been written that mentioned birds in them that I might know, so I Googled to see what I might find.   On Billboard.com this bit of wisdom was imparted - “Birds are often used as a metaphor for feeling free – flying above whatever it is that might be holding you down.   That’s one of the reasons artist play on birds – doves, vultures, bird songs or just the word “bird” generically – as a symbol in a...

HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW By Peggy Williams AKA Birdie of Mississippi Since I am not a professional in the study of birds, I do not know all the scientific facts about birds.   Recently I found out how really angry “true” bird professionals could become when I shared one of my photos of a sparrow on a Facebook site that is mostly made up of bird scientists.   I was amazed at how tiny sparrows could stir up the dandruff of the bird community. After a few mean sparrow comments were made the site administrator stepped in and told them to knock it off that sparrows were needed in our eco-system!   I laugh now at my ignorance of how such a tiny bird could get their blood boiling, but I still love little sparrows.   When I photograph birds in my backyard I often see leaves jumping around on the ground and as I zoom in on the movement I see tiny camouflaged sparrows hidden in the midst of the leaves searching for bugs! The Bible references the sparrow 40 ti...

DID YOU EAT “BIRD” FOR THANKSGIVING? By Peggy Williams AKA Birdie of Mississippi I have never thought that being a “bird lover” and being a “bird eater” could possibly be such a contradiction, until I read an article by Nicholas Lund on Audubon.org called: Decide How You Feel About Eating Birds.   Since we just had Thanksgiving and many of us sat down at our family gathering to eat our fair share of a turkey dinner, it’s a good time to think about how we feel about eating birds.   As a “bird fancier” it is a well known fact that I love birds!   Watching birds in my own backyard is one of my favorite things to do and the feeling of peace that they bring to me is wonderful, so how could I possibly enjoy eating birds?   And yet I do enjoy eating them! I fry them, bake them, boil them, broil them and grill them!   Just like Bubba in the movie Forest Gump I could recite a list of all the ways that I enjoy preparing “birds.”   But, how can I have...

INSIDE BIRDIES By Peggy Williams AKA Birdie of Mississippi During Fall Break my family and I had a great little vacation trip to St. Louis.   While we were there we went to Grant’s Farm which is a wonderful place to spend a day feeding goats, looking at animals and enjoying being with your family.   One of my favorite things we did was go into a Birdie cage to feed parakeets.   My parents didn’t have birds for pets when I was little, so I didn’t realize how beautiful parakeets are!   Before we went into the cage we were given seed hot glued to a Popsicle stick to feed them.   There were about a hundred parakeets in a variety of beautiful colors and we were surrounded by Birdies!   My grand-daughters’ laughter as we fed the little Birdies was contagious and before I knew it, I was giggling, too! They were so colorful, tiny and cute.   One landed on my daughter’s head and suddenly we each had parakeets landing on us.   One was on my hand ...