My knee didn’t bother me much on Monday morning but
there was a little twinge so I decided to rest it from riding for another day.
For
two mornings in a row while doing song practice and looking out the window I
have seen a squirrel on the opposite side of the street scurry along the power
line from the east and try to cross Dunn Avenue. Both times though it has been
turned back and attacked on the line near the traffic light by an angry little
sparrow about half its size but with the advantage of height being much less of
a danger for it so far from a tree. If the bushy tailed rodent were to be
knocked off the wire, grabbing the side of the wooden pole wouldn’t have been
as sure a thing as being knocked from an upper tree limb and catching onto a
lower one, so the squirrel retreated both times. The sparrow must have been
defending a nearby nest and it’s interesting that pigeons roost in the same
area but I’ve never seen sparrows attack them. I guess it’s because they know
they aren’t a threat, whereas, though I’d always thought that squirrels were
vegetarians, upon looking it up I discovered that they eat eggs and even
nestlings. That may very well have been its reason for crossing on the wire in
the first place.
I
didn’t realize that sparrows were that aggressive at defending their nests. The
red winged blackbirds are the ones in Toronto with the reputation for
dive-bombing people if they get too close to their nests. I got attacked myself
once down by Sunnyside Beach. I’ve notice that lately the blackbirds are more
frequently landing on the wire in front of my window and doing their complex
mating calls.
That
evening I didn’t go for a bike ride but exercised while listening to another
episode of Amos and Andy. Andy and Kingfish were in the elevator of a
department store and the operator called out “Home furnishings!” but then added
that there weren’t any home furnishings. I guess this was a reference to
shortages due to the war, although the war had ended the year before that.
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