24 February 11

February is National Bird Feeding Month. Of course we feed the birds all year long! We have more than a dozen feeders around our yard, including a large one with three different bins (for mixed seed, safflower seed and sunflower seed). This is a tie I found recently at Goodwill, featuring medallions of various animals and rose windows. Two of the animals are birds--perhaps a vulture and a tailor-bird--one is a tiger, and the other one may be a mongoose (based on the shape of the head and body, but not the tail). Those animals all feature prominently in Aesop's fables and in Rudyard Kipling's stories.