By the time you have read this you will have paid your taxes, right? And filled and hung your Hummer feeder, right? I wish I could say I had drained all the standing puddles, and got the temperature over 60 degrees so that I could go out, and persuaded the sun to really come out instead of sulking in an overcast sky. However let’s be thankful for all the little patches of small blue bulbs and the spring calls of the birds.

As the upside down suet feeder I mentioned in my last letter is so close to my window seat, I have been able to study the English sparrows and understand why they are ubiquitous (by the way you won’t find them in the sparrow section of your bird guide as they are finches). At first they would fly up and take a peck. Now some of them, mostly males with their dark heads, have learned to cling and eat and eat, as many as three at a time but they leave in a hurry when the little downy woodpecker turns up.

I know I have ranted and raved about how deer destroy crops and are dangerous to cars, but I am human and therefore fickle. So it was with wonder and excitement that on a twilight evening I looked out on the newly mowed field behind the house and saw three deer and a half grown fawn and then more and more on the far edges. In the half light their tails are amazingly white so it is easy to spot them. As my little hunter was fast asleep there was nothing to disturb them and they just took their time, moving slowly and nibbling at the new grass sprouts until they disappeared.

And next month MAY!! The month of magic.

Sidney Tynan

Little Compton