[va-richmond-general] Re: Tonight in the Bottom (purple martins)

Linda & I went down to see the Martins last night and noticed something 
interesting. After most of the birds had already settled down in the Bradford 
Pear trees, a few of them were still flying around the streets. One of them 
came into the parking lot where several of us were standing and started flying 
up to the white-painted concrete wall as if it were looking for a place to 
roost. Then it flew around the parking lot and skimmed the blacktop of the 
street for awhile like it was confused and not aware of where the famous trees 
were located. Sue Ridd actually tried to herd it to the trees, but it didn't 
work. The sky was about dark at this point. Eventually they all settled down, 
but it took awhile. Maybe those stragglers were late coming in and young enough 
not to know the ropes yet.
One other thing - don't do as I did and forget not to walk under those trees. 
That got a little messy. At least I experienced the noise under there. It is 
really noisy with 5000 or more birds only a few feet above.
Oh, one more thing - we tried to do our part and went into Havana 59 for a 
drink so we could let them know why we were there. When we told the waiter we 
came to see the birds he didn't know what we were talking about, although he 
had seen them flying around. Most of the folks there are not interested in 
anything remotely close to birds. And I was wearing my very birdy Birdjam 
T-shirt - slightly the worse for wear from time spent under the trees. Couldn't 
figure out why nobody else was sitting in that area of the bar!

Al Warfield
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JANICE FRYE 
  To: va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:37 PM
  Subject: [va-richmond-general] Tonight in the Bottom (purple martins)


  The family had a hankering for River City Diner's bacon/cheddar fries and 
onion rings, so we went there about 9:30.  On the way home at 10:05 the birds 
were completely quiet.  A brief check with a flashlight showed white bellies 
and elicited a few twitters without any startle reaction.  If anyone from the 
city reads this, it might be time to wash the sidewalk under those 6 trees 
where they concentrate. J  Did anyone try to count tonight?  Just curious-will 
they increase by about a thousand a day or is it more uneven?  Goodnight!

   

  Jan

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