No more aviary

I took my hanging bird feeder down about a month ago because it was causing too much trouble as it was drawing too many undesirables who tried to get at the food and also the birds. I had a rat come looking for food, squirrels all the time and eventually cats started checking it out. One morning I looked out and there were bird feathers all over the deck. So I knew the cat would keep coming. The last straw was one morning I heard what sounded like a bird screaming! I ran to the  window and a cat came running out from behind my fern planter in the corner. I think he was back there eating the bird. So that was the last straw. I took the feeder down but the birds kept coming and looking in the windows at me, and I felt awful! But I just couldn't go through all that anymore.The birds gradually realized there was no more food so they must have gone elsewhere.

I was worried about my one special bird, Larry. He was here in the bad winter of 2008, and that was when I started putting food out for him. He's been with me ever since. He always comes in the early evening when it begins to get dark, and sometimes sits on the ledge. I feel like he's my special pet. He sits out there and I look at him and he looks at me. We have a very exciting life! I don't have any pets - no cats, dogs, goldfish, etc. I did have goldfish and a bullfrog in the fern pot when it was a fishpond, but a raccoon ate them all up one night. So I'm very protective of Larry, my sparrow. And I'll be darned if Larry isn't still with me! I put a little food out every day in the corner of one of my flower pots and he goes right to it. No one else does and that's the way I want it. In the top picture is Larry which was taken quite a while ago. I couldn't get a new picture of him. The bottom picture has the flower pot with food in it. I put the food in the back part of the pot so Larry can see if the cat is coming in under my gate. I feel like Larry is my family and I don't want anything to ever happen to him! I'll never forget the screams I heard coming from a bird the cat was eating. I don't want that to ever happen again.

I may be fooling myself to think that little sparrow is Larry from 2008. I don't think they live very long, but I've never had more than one sparrow on my deck, so I call him Larry whoever he is. He's mine!