Vote Now for the BirdCam Essay Contest Winner!

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Thank you to everyone who submitted an essay for the BirdCam contest--here are your finalists! The winner of this contest will receive the exciting new BirdCam! To vote for the winner, post your comment to this article and be sure to give the number of the essay you have selected. Voting will take place through 10/28 and the winner will be announced on 10/31. Enjoy reading these terrific stories!  Michelle

#1  Hurricane Katrina Survivors
Birding and gardening are my favorite hobbies.  My grandparents taught me all about gardening, landscaping, water ponds and growing fruit trees. They always had a special flower or garden nook.  I developed the habit of feeding our backyard birds leftover bread from my early childhood.  Almost fifty years has passed and I am still feeding the backyard birds.
 
Hurricane Katrina devastated my landscape and downed several large pine trees that caused structural damage
to my home.  We sustained a lot of water damage to the interior and lost most appliances and furniture items. Three dogwood trees, a shady live-oak tree and our favorite pear tree were destroyed.  My arbor, two trellises, a raised box planter, several bird nesting boxes and bird feeders were also destroyed or blown away.

My disabled wife and I were displaced for several months over eight hundred miles away.  Upon returning to our home, we were greeted by the resident Bluebirds and Cardinals waiting on our patio.  The male Cardinal was extremely excited to see us and chattered very loudly, as if he was telling what they had experienced during the storm.  The bluebirds were more interested in mealworm treats.  We were happy to see that they had survived the horrifying storm.  I purchased a new platform feeder and a bluebird nest box.  As I filled the feeder, the male cardinal attempted to land on my head.  The Nuthatches and Chickadees greeted me with new babies and a zero landing on my head and eyeglasses.  A few days later the Titmouse, Towhee and Blue Jay families returned to the new feeder.

A few months later, I began planning a new landscape for my front and back yard areas.  Recently, I planted two Pink Dogwood trees, two Yellow Delicious Apple trees and one Washington Hawthorne tree.  I started an orchard of miniature citrus trees where my arbor once stood.  Our Cannas, Bee Balm, Caladiums, Pink Hibiscus, Cardinal Flower, Daisies and Gladiolas all survived and displayed a show of blooms this summer.  The hardy Yellow Trumpet Vine grew fifty feet and flowered large yellow blooms.  Two Weeping Weigela shrubs recovered and displayed tons of pink-rose colored blooms. Surprisingly, our bare landscape was revisited by the elusive Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, over 500 American Robins and 1,000 Cedar Waxwings plus the usual resident birds. 

We’re still in the recovery process and we look forward to that final house renovation and moving back inside our home.  Admiring the colorful blooms has given us a great joy during our times of despair. Visiting Songbirds provide a cheerful hello.  I would love to win because I adore nature, all the colorful birds, gardening endeavors and taking lots of photographs.  Good luck to all who enter the contest!
Sincerely,
Danny Grantham

#2  Kentucky School Launches Outdoor Classroom
Please, please award our school the BirdCam!  We are installing an Outdoor Classroom at our school, Christ the King in Lexington KY this year and we are struggling to get donations to make this project “fly."  Our School educates 500 students K-8 and we are a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.  Our Outdoor Classroom will have 5 Modules:  Organic Garden, Wildlife Observation, Geology, Renewable Energy Sources, and Weather Station.  We don’t have any outdoor learning facilities currently and what better way to teach the kids than through ‘hands on’ activities?  Our goal is to enhance required curricula and teach our students how they impact the environment.    We want these future leaders to become environmental stewards - to “make a difference” in their communities.

In 2007, our School was selected as a ‘pilot’ school for the Kentucky Green & Healthy Schools Program.  Additionally, the school achieved ‘Elite Wastebuster’ status with the LFUCG Solid Waste Division.  Both of these programs require dedication from students, teachers and parents.  Six months ago, we hardly recycled anything- now we recycle approximately 75% of our paper, metal and plastic waste!  Our school and church work hard to offer programs to our local neighborhoods such as: Furniture Bank, Meals on Wheels, Christmas Store for Needy Kids and many other events.  The school grounds are open to the public and are used for recreation.  The Outdoor Classroom Modules will also be accessible to all members of the community. 

Imagine the amazed faces of the kids as they watch our feathered friends on the BirdCam!  Please don’t turn us down, we need your help. 

Sincerely,
Janet Sams and Maura Hazard, Parent Volunteers

#3  Tends to Her Yard and Birds While Fighting Cancer
We are bird lovers, and our yard always has been the perfect place for a BirdCam.  For years, we have had more than twenty feeders in our yard--long ones to let eight finches eat nyger seed at the same time, wire ones for chopped nuts and cracked corn, and upside down ones to encourage the nuthatches and woodpeckers to stop by.  Recently, however, there have been changes that have strengthened my connections to the wild birds and that would make me value that bird camera even more.

Animals--both wild and domesticated--have always been an important part of our household.  When our daughter was young, we had not only two dogs and two cats but also fish, a love bird, a rabbit, a guinea pig, a gerbil and a hamster, a variety of small lizards, and two large African frogs.  In addition, there were those twenty-plus bird feeders hanging in the two dogwood trees near the house in the back yard and in the yews in the front yard.  Unlike friends who plotted diabolic ways to rid their yards of squirrels, we put out still more feeders for ours and schemed about ways to attract the chipmunks and wild turkeys that other friends bemoaned having in their yards.   As our daughter entered her college years, my almost obsessive interest in gardening began to focus on native plants, and at the same time, I began to feel that life in a cage--no matter how pampered that life was--may not be the best for animals.  As our beloved caged pets died of old age, we did not replace them but, instead, focused on making our yard an even better habitat for wild creatures.

When we lost one of our pets to old age, we developed a tradition of creating a small memorial in the yard (not a marker or grave stone but a special section of a garden) and also made a promise to do something special for the animals that remained.  When Archie, our love bird, died at the age of eleven, her garden featured hydrangeas and caryopteris shrubs the color of the blue in her tail feathers.  In warm weather, she had sat in front of the open sliding doors in the living room and chirped to the outdoor birds at the feeders; therefore, my promise in her honor was to be more diligent about making sure that all 21 feeders were always filled.

This past year, not long after Archie died, I was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer that required both chemotherapy and radiation.  I was proud of myself that all through the winter, even on days that I could barely drag myself out of bed, I kept the bird feeders filled.   As though it was a reward for my commitment, this spring two mother blue jays built their nests at the far back of our yard for the first time.  I was in Archie’s garden when the three babies from the first nest fledged.   Those birds soon were joined by two from the second nest.  Throughout the late spring and early summer, they kept me company in the yard, calling to me from their perches in the yews in the side  yard and the hemlock they seemed to like best.  They loved to play in the spray from my hoses.  By mid-summer, they would call to me when I walked up the driveway at the end of the day to let me know when the feeders were running low.  All jays had looked alike to me before, but I was able to identify my two favorite babies and to tell all the babies from their mothers.  One of the babies still comes to visit me by perching in a tree near the part of the garden in which I’m working. I’m hoping that the mothers or the babies will establish nests next year and that others will join them. 

The Birdcam would provide us with a wonderful tool to observe a new set of the children and grandchildren of Archie’s friends.  E. Wilkinson

#4 Time to Leave Home
I have lived in the same house now for about 15 years, and my husband and I are getting ready to move away next year.  We’ll be accomplishing a long-anticipated dream of moving to Maine, but there are quite a few things I’ll miss about this place, and most of them have four legs or wear feathers.  As we’ve told our prospective house buyers, nearly everything here has a name, and many of them have a story to go with it.

 When we first moved here, we didn’t see any birds or wildlife at all.  I started gardening our second year here, and I began to notice a few birds, a lizard, and the occasional preying mantis.  I decided to work my garden as naturally as possible hoping not to kill the few bits of wildlife I’d manage to find. After a couple years had passed, they began to come around.  I saw woodpeckers of all shapes and sizes, flocks of goldfinches bathing in the waterfall and small pond I’d created, and my favorite -  the titmice who insisted on building their nest in the ell of a downspout, even though the wind rushed through there and blew all the babies out.  All of a sudden, there were more lizards, a whole battalion of chameleons around the porch.  The best day ever was when the hummingbird feeder finally attracted a crowd.  It used to hang right outside my window, and every day I was treated to the aerial acrobatics of four male hummingbirds each trying to defend the feeder against the interlopers.  What a show.

Time passed, and in the way things seem to happen here, the crowd grew.  We had two does that would circle the property daily, and they’d have their fawns here each spring.  A big flock of crows moved in down the hill.  I know some people don’t like them, but there were a pair which would walk up the driveway together each day.  They’d come up to the house, turn around and go back, just like two friends on a daily walk.  And me, in the middle of it all…well, I’d go about my business, but I always made it a point to say hello to any I saw, and to leave treats for them, especially at Christmas.  After a while they began to know me, and to expect me at certain times.  I think they began to understand that I was in charge of the bird feeders as well.

Toward the end of our stay here, the relationship has grown.  Our big tomcat got curious about the deer, and made friends with one of the fawns.  It was amazing to see the mother waiting down the driveway, the fawn standing up closer staring at the house, and my old boy tearing down there to join them.  I watched them stroll slowly through the woods.  He’s gone now, but the descendents of the fawn continue to circle the property daily.  The lizards are really everywhere now, including tiny new ones wobbly with their oversized heads.  I’ve named them all Louie, except for a very large one who has visited my porch year after year.  He’s Mr. Louis. 

The birds clearly understand who I am, and that my purpose in life is to take care of the bird feeders.  When the seed runs out,  I can almost hear them out there talking.  “Go tell the lady it’s empty.”  “YOU go tell the lady it’s empty!”  In the end, it’s always a chickadee who comes to my office window to catch my attention.  Are they the most industrious, or is it that they’re lowest in the pecking order?   The hummingbirds are the best at giving me orders.  I’d gotten used to having one hover at the window, looking for me when their feeder was dry, but I didn’t know they considered me responsible to fix every possible problem they might have.  I was summoned outside for a refill once, only to find that this was not the problem.  One of the lizards had climbed up onto the feeder and was happily drinking the nectar.  The hummingbirds decided this was something I could help them with, I guess.

 I didn’t mean to ramble on for so long, but you store up a lot of memories over 15 years in a place like this.  As I’ve been sorting through all our things and doing some packing, I’ve found many photos of happy times in this place, and decided I’d eventually try to scrapbook the great years we’ve spent here.  The only problem is that, while I have many photos of family and friends, pets, and happy holidays, I have very few of our wild friends.  Those moments just seemed to happen so spontaneously and quickly, it wasn’t possible.  It would be very nice to have the BirdCam at our new place, so I could document our new wildlife adventures, but the most important thing I’d do is to capture some last photos of the gang here before we have to leave in the spring.  There will be a big hole in the memory book without them.
Thanks for reading,
Karla

#5 For Mom
What a great item to share. Which is exactly what I would do with it. My parents have bird feeders hanging out back where they can view them from the kitchen window. It was nice to see them stand together, my Dad's arm around Mom's waist just admiring the birds & talking about them. But things have changed. My Dad passed away Sept 4th unexpectedly from a massive heart attack while at home. Mom still stands at the windows to watch the birds and tells me what she sees them doing. Having this BirdCam would be something new for her to be occupied with. Something I think she would enjoy. She always watched the eaglecam at Norfolk's Botanical Gardens and loved it. She loves seeing the American Gold Finch's land at a feeder, they just never stay long enough to get a good look.

Thank you for your consideration of my entry to the contest.  
M. Lewis, VA

#6  Daddy's Little Girl
My daughter is 7 years old and loves birds of all kinds. My husband is the one who has taught her about the different species and every morning before he went to work they would both look outside and together watch what birds had "come to visit". It reminded me of my dad when he and I would do the same thing while I was growing up in Maine, including going out on ice cold mornings  to make sure the birds had enough to eat.

My husband is stationed in Afghanistan right now and of all the times my daughter misses her dad, which is all the time, the hardest is the mornings. She goes to the window and looks out and always tells me which birds have "come to visit". I try and take her dads place but I know I cannot. Yesterday it was so rainy and stormy and when my daughter went to the window I am not sure if it was the rain or her tears which were reflected in the glass. I would like to win this for her so she could share it with her dad and make the distance of the separation a little less far.  

• Posted at Monday, October 22, 2007 07:59 AM
• In Contests Category | Permalink