The smile on the face of a sparrow…….

You don’t believe me, do you?  I’ll bet you have never looked closely enough at these pesky little birds to notice their peculiar quirks. Neither had I until, recently, when I generously bought them a bird bath. 

 You would think they would have been highly delighted at this gift from me, but no.  They regarded it with disdain. They flew over it, around it, and under it, but would they get their feet wet?  Hell no. They preferred having a dust bath in a little patch of dirt.   I dutifully changed the water, and watched hopefully from my bedroom window, but nary a bird could be seen drinking or wallowing in the bird bath. Ingrates, I thought. 

At one point, I considered giving up my philanthropic gesture to nature, and decided to  reclaim it and turn  it into a very nice planter .  However, that day, miracle of miracles, a lone sparrow flew down and landed on the edge of the bath.  As I looked, he dipped his beak into the water and took a long drink.   When I looked again, there suddenly appeared a lot of sparrows, the first bird was a trail blazer. 

Now, just because you cant see a sparrow’s  teeth, that doesn’t mean he is  not smiling. I feel I am a great success with my bird bath, and now there are different types of birds coming in, too.

The moral of this story is .....Summer is edging closer and another El Nino weather pattern is forecast. It would be great if you could remember to provide water for our bird and animal friends, particularly if you live in a heat stricken part of Australia