Mississippi Delta blues were hitting the beats this past weekend in Clarksdale, but wait outside a bit and pretty quick you’ll be seeing other blues in the Delta.
Indigo bunting, painted bunting, Eastern blue bird, blue egrets and more — all manner of birds — will be coming to your neighborhood, according to Philip Barbour of Sidon, recent guest speaker for the Plantation Garden Club.
As the ground was soaked from days of rain, it was a relief to get out amongst friends as we met at Libby Whitten’s home to hear Philip’s happy bird calls with a beautiful slide show arranged just for us.
Philip is a retired botanist and biologist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He currently contracts with USDA Agricultural Conservation Experienced Services (ACES), which recruits skilled personnel aged 55 and older to provide temporary services for conservation-related programs.
When not involved with retired work activities, his passion is birding with his wife Katherine. Every Christmas since 1989, Barbour has held a birding event as part of a larger National Audubon Society Christmas bird count. Sixteen rare birds have been sighted. With his home as ground zero, they spread out 15 miles around to call and count birds. Using a speaker which creates a desired call or a phone app to identify a call that one hears are new tools since starting their journey.
Some of the best bird-sighting areas are around Tunica, as it’s a little more north and closer to the hills. Just to the edge of the hills never fails to bring a grand showing.
If you are looking to attract birds to your yard, the Barbours are partial to platform feeders. Philip makes his own from an assortment of post type things including a crop auger (which frustrates the squirrels) and a plywood surface for the seed (ideally 5 feet off the ground to deter cats) covered with some type of roof. The Barbours have about six.
A few facts: there are 11,000 species of birds, including 2,059 in North America and 426 in Mississippi.
The bar-tailed godwit flies 5,600 miles nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand without stopping to feed.
Mississippi has two types of vultures: the turkey vulture, with a keen sense of smell, and the black vulture with no sense of smell.
We have 12 species of sparrows in winter and six in summer.
When photos of owls were shown, we were treated to Philip’s bird calls, which made the dog bark and signaled our hostess Libby Whitten and co-hostess Lyn Gates that it was time to serve refreshments.
I believe I heard the fresh asparagus came from Julia Turnipseed’s garden rolled deliciously in toast. The lemon butter cake was so special. Lyn made the centerpiece with some of the bluebells from Libby’s yard. It was a very special day to shoo away rain among old and new friends.
