Circumstantial evidence

Yesterday we promised to share another bear story. We confess we think this is a bear story but do not have proof of such. Last Thursday we mentioned the destruction of the post on which our backyard bluebird house once was mounted. Yesterday we showed a bear visiting the feeder in the front yard about nine years ago. We also were troubled to notice that the back yard blluebird house had been smashed from its new, improved, stronger post. We didn’t see the perpetrator but can’t picture any local critter other than a bear, very hungry in June, that would have the inclination and ability to do this:

who but a bear would do this?

Photo by J. Harrington

We don’t know if there were eggs or fledglings in the house. We hope not although we suspect fledgling noises might have attracted the culprit’s attention. The remnants of the nest are on the ground between the lilacs and the post. Someday soon we’ll remove the nest and pull the post. Until and unless we figure out how to install a bear-proof bluebird house, we won’t set another adult pair up for the kind of frustration and failure the pair pictured below seem to experience. Pardon the anthropomorphism, but they look much like a “WTF happened?” pair.

bluebirds perched on smashed house

Photo by J. Harrington

Last year we had lots of conflict between the tree swallows that nested in a tall aluminum house up on a tall pole on the hill and the bluebirds. This year we didn’t mount the swallow house (supposedly designed for purple martins) back to the top of its pole. So far this year, neither swallows nor martins are resident. This summer we’ve gone from too much moisture to none locally and too many birds last year to none except at the feeders. I don’t like the pattern that shows.

THE BLUEBIRD

by Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

Watch an animated version of the poem at the marginalian. 

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