Welcome to The Heartland Album

McDuff and the backyard birdbath are a bunch of buddies. They are impressed by this 55-pound Border Collie.
When he is on guard the birds know they are safe. Duffy's post is just four feet from the clubhouse pool. He sleeps very alertly and the birds have only to watch him for signs of trouble. When he moves they know something evil is approaching from outside the yard. They thank him for the warning and fly off for a bit.


A splash of water may land on Duffy but he'll just open an eye and watch as they conduct their election of officers. They elect new officers each time a new bird arrives at the clubhouse pool. If the newcomer is larger, then he or she probably
is elected president and gets the concrete chunk lying just inside the rim as a podium from which to conduct business.


They have frequent elections, usually with brief and somewhat heated discussions. Club members frequently form
cliques within the overall membership. Mourning doves, cardinals, sparrows, robins, blue Jays and grackles like to form submemberships. Duffy doesn't care whom they elect. That's their business, not his. After election of officers it's fun time and they do get a bit rowdy. So they kick all of the water out of their pool. So what? It's up to that guy over in that big square birdhouse to keep the level right. When he heads their way with a gallon jug they politely flit off into the nearby bushes and trees and wait for their pool to be refilled.


Birds, of course, own the world. They let us humans think that they don't because mostly when they see us they go somewhere else very quickly. When we go they return and take over again. I hide from them behind my den window..
They would probably mob me if they knew I was aiming at them with a tripod mounted 35mm camera attached to a
300mm lens. It was the birds, you know, that drove convertible automobiles out of existence back in 1976. The driving public just decided that birds had won and there was no sense in trying to keep the seats clean. They went back to hard tops.


Now a new generation of car buyers is demanding and car manufacturers are building them convertibles again. It remains to be seen whether the birds will let them get away with it. Then comes the eternal question. What's the real purpose of the birdbath? Is it a place where they drink their bath water or where they bathe in their drinking water? Then there's that thing about the convertibles which might also apply to… Oh! Never mind!