Friday, October 27, 2006

Feed the Birds Day

Dinner Time

Tomorrow is Feed the Birds Day, Saturday the 28th. Now I do not know who proclaimed this, or certified this, or what makes the 28th the day, but tomorrow is the day. Maybe it is tied into the day we turn our clocks back, which signifies that autumn is flying by and old-man Winter is near, boooo!!!.

I originally found out about this on the Treehugger site, and from there went to the RSPB site. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Where you will find just about everything you need to know about feeding birds, and I mean everything.

When looking at this; I am starting to wonder, is this a British Day, a International Day, or something we've hijacked for commercial purposes?.

Actually I am now really wondering because I don't know if the Brits practice Daylight Savings Time. Would this confuse the Queen? Hmmmm, it seems that this post is more about questions than answers.

At any rate, a Landscape Designer has a responsibility to create environments that our beneficial to our feathery friends. Personally, I like it when the client remarks about being a birder, and for me, landscaping to accommodate that hobby is important. Designing for birds leads to a emphasis on plants that allow for cover, food, water, shelter, and protection from predators.

As for the above photo . . . well predators gotta eat, and out here in the country they do a pretty good job of cleaning up road kill. It is part of the cycle of life.

So no matter who's day it is tomorrow here's to our little feathery friends, now go put the cat away . . . at least for tomorrow.

2 comments:

Gary said...

To answer your important questions...

1. No, I've never heard of "feed the birds" day here - "shoot and then eat the birds" is practiced by the upper echelons all year round though.

2. Yes we do BST/GMT, we've just switched back to Greenwich Mean Time this weekend, the northern lattitudes of the UK are in line with Norway so they have very short days in the winter - we all get to change our clocks so that a handfull of farmers in Scotland can milk their cows in daylight.


PS - thats a bloody big bird in your photo, it would feed his Lordships household for days would that one.

Rick Anderson said...

Gary, thanks for the info . . . I appreciate the *Lords* getting in their hunting, and wow, thank goodness those dairy farmers can milk those cows.

In my part of Ohio we call those birds Turkey Buzzards and yes, they are pretty good size. Find yourself being circled by 3 or 4 of them and you start to wonder . . .