Barking Fox

Check out the gratuitous grackle

The boy called last night at just about dusk. I went out on the front porch to talk to him and was much entertained by a brace of sleepy male ruby-throated hummingbirds, which kept perching on the flower basket hooks. They would sit there waving their heads back and forth and occasionally flipping their wings like kids bopping to the music.


I was wondering if maybe they had little birdie iPods tucked in their feathers and ear buds too small to see. Eventually they took off for wherever they spend the night, but they were fun while they stayed.


After the boy hung up to get some rest, I went in to hang up our phone then went back out there just to enjoy the night. It feels like summer now and smells like summer too.


The cat bird kids didn't want to go to bed and were giving the old folks a hard time. They made quite a din down there in the mulberry tree. Then spring bird number 35 rowed slowly across the sky, heading down to the river I guess, a great blue heron, just catching the last rays as the sun went down.


I sat until it was almost full dark, then suddenly heard the strangest sound from the field in front of me. I came in and checked out YouTube and sure enough, it was a fox barking.


To call the noise a fox makes a bark is to call Air Force one a mosquito. What a big, eerie sound for such a small mammal. You can hear one here in all its glory. I would kind of enjoy having the things around if it weren't for their plagitty infatuation with all things chicken.