ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 19, 1996 TAG: 9602200030
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
Excuse me. I almost missed out on the fact that February is National Bird Feeding Month.
It's not nice to miss important events like that. People who care about the Earth and its proper ecological balances should pay more attention to bird-feeding events like that. It's all right to miss National Enchilada Month or National Reduced-Fat Ice Cream Month. I guess.
It does make me feel better about myself to realize that we are year-around bird-feeding people. You could say some of us are obsessed with feeding birds.
We may be out of canned corned beef in the winter or tonic water in the summer, but we're always very big on bird seed.
Just because I almost missed National Bird Feeding Month doesn't mean I don't like birds and don't think they're just as cute as they can be.
Who waded waist deep into the snow, with a wind chill of minus 10, and picked up the primary feeder after the wind blew it off the tree limb? Old Bennie here. That's who.
I hung it back up to allow one of the squirrels we also support to slither down over the plastic dome that is supposed to keep squirrels out of the bird seed and eat itself silly.
I like squirrels, too. Oh, sure, something dark and brooding in my background makes we want to have some squirrel gravy again. But it's a nasty business, skinning squirrels, and the head cook at our house doesn't do squirrel gravy.
There should be a National Squirrel Feeding Month. And, somehow, I suspect there is. Probably October.
I am afraid, however, that we have made squirrels less self-reliant than they are supposed to be. I'll bet there are squirrels out in Mouth of Wilson who have heard about the handouts on Happy Highfields Road and are on their way right now.
I don't think squirrels were ever intended to be on the dole.
What happened to all those squirrels Walt Disney invented who didn't depend on anybody to take care of them? They were industrious, thrifty and cute as hell.
Think about it. When was the last time you saw a suburban squirrel hurrying to a hollow tree with its cheeks full of acorns or hickory nuts?
No. They're all slithering over the plastic domes on thousands of bird feeders; taking the easy way out, being parasitical and eating themselves to premature graves.
I have to go now. I think there's a purple-crested titwillow on the bird feeder.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 linesby CNB