I watch the seasons change and the life go on outside my kitchen window while washing dishes and preparing meals. Because of my disease and orthodox eating habits we never go out to eat and there are hardly any pre prepared foods I buy so I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, sometimes cooking up to 7 hours at a clip!

I am blessed in this house we live in now that I have a window over my sink that looks out on a back yard where I have set up a feeding station and watering station for the neighborhood birds.

Just recently I noticed many robins who should have been gone from here a month ago, taking turns sipping from the water bowl. I should have exchanged it for the plastic one by now , normally we would have had a frost.

Today I noticed some juncos and chickadees, a sure sign of winter but the temps don't show it so much. We are getting weather now like we should have had in October and in October we had August and Sept weather.

The titmouse are enjoying the pumpkin seeds I put out after scraping the one we had gotten for Sukkot out and baking it. They also cleaned up the seeds from another squash I had for dinner the other day.

The doves are back in full force, I counted 19 today~ all around the feeding area.

This summer we were privileged to host a family of hawks. They must have had a nest very near by and for over a month the babies ( two of them) sat in the trees, crying out to mom and dad to catch them something to eat. One time I saw one of them out in a tree in my back yard not 50 feet from the house. I walked under the tree it was sitting in and talked to it for a bit. He didn't seem to mind, guess he had been observing me for awhile and knew I am an animal lover.

Do any of you share a birdwatchers heart?

i have a nice pair of binoculars and like to watch birds sometimes. a little distance from my parents house, the local authority have built a small nature reserve with some small ponds. So far so good, but not fully established yet.

however, arlevs other half is a serious bird watcher and can recognise them by the sounds they make.

me, i know what comes in my garden and recognise many of the common and not so common birds and have a pretty good grasp of UK (only) wildlife which I intend to instill into Zak (when he is a little older).

Steve

Oh yes, we love birds. We've counted about 9 different types that come into our garden, mostly Australian natives. We also buy seed for them and have a bird bath for them. About a year ago I used to buy mince meat and hand fed magpies...which are a black and white native bird. I had about a dozen or more sometimes. The parents would come with the babies, take the meat from my hand and feed it to the young. Trouble is, they became a bid demanding and were squarking at 5.am and about sundown every day, and it was starting to cost a lot, AND they were making a mess of my patio table.....but it was a wonderful experience.

The day it started I'd had an arguement with my son (on the phone)and I was terribly upset. I prayed about it and asked God to show me that He'd make everything ok with my son. I asked for a sign.....and you won't believe it...but within an hour or so.....a maggie came and sat on my patio table for the first time. I guess I'm silly, but I believe to this day that it was the answer to my prayers. I had them coming for weeks, but eventually stopped because of the mess they made, but they still come into the yard and we enjoy watching them. Our dogs don't bother them, and the birds don't seem the least bit worried about the dogs either.

We have a lot of water near us, the ocean and lakes, and we often see huge pelicans riding on the hot thermals high above the house. They look like giant kites and often there are several that fly in formation....magnificent.....!!!!

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Vella that is a wonderful story!

Arlev, we live not to far from a Hawk Sanctuary so the hawks breeding here in the city in my yard is amazing to me when they have the mountains not that far away. I saw one of the youngsters just the other day outside my window, he was perched low on a branch of one of my oaks on the edge of the yard.

We are up to about 3 dozen doves now. It is hysterical, yesterday they had gathered on the picnic table where I place their seed, each falling down from the sky it seems, as they sit in the trees above it, waiting for the perfect moment to come down and feed. Some were on the table, some the benches and the rest on the ground. When out of nowhere it seemed the squirrel ran up to stuff his face and sent most of them flying! Reminded me of Pumba in Lion King bowling for buzzards!