Until this last Spring, I scoffed at my husband's efforts to feed wild birds because in my opinion, he wasted his time as the birds had enough food provided by nature. Then, three encounters that occurred within a span of a couple of months changed my long-held belief.

In 35 years of driving, not once has a bird collided with my car but as I drove on I-40 at 70 miles per hour, a dove flew into the hood of my car. I flinched as I anticipated its body bouncing up onto my windshield and instead saw it flapping like an ornament at the front of the hood. I braked and quickly pulled over to the shoulder of the busy interstate. The dove's head was stuck in the grill and I agonized how to pull it out without hurting the dove. Light bulb went off and I pulled the hood release and the dove fell to the ground. The fragile neck of the dove was no match for 70 MPH wind so I placed the lifeless body in the desert sand next to the road. Then, one day as I was driving down a packed road in Albuquerque, I realized the roadrunner I steered my car over to avoid hitting was down but still alive! I made a U-turn and parked in front of a school. As I ran back and waited for traffic so I could cross and position myself on the median, I noticed the roadrunner had no apparent injuries but was laying on his chest with his tail sticking straight up. I saw my opening to jump into the street and grab the roadrunner. He fought me but I managed to hold on and took him to the school grounds where I hid him under a Mesquite bush and said a quick prayer for his recovery. As I drove on I thought about how I hated that I was part of a lifestyle that crushed nature by burgeoning development and reliance upon motorized transportation. The third encounter made me finally realize how difficult it is for wild animals to survive. I was enjoying a walk on the beautifully landscaped grounds of my employer. At the bottom of some stairs, I came upon a bunch of feathers and two tiny talons - all that was left of a yellow warbler. Next to this recent kill was another yellow warbler lying still with eyes closed but intact physically. Thinking that the predator had only stunned this handsome bird, I gently picked it up and hid it well hoping for the best. When I checked on it later, it had not moved. I suddenly knew this was the mate of the eaten prey. It had lay down next to what was left of its mate and died. Did it die of a broken heart? It broke my heart so I immediately decided to take over feeding the wild birds in my backyard.

As with most of our endeavors, mixed results are produced and feeding wild birds is no exception. My backyard is xeriscaped and is wide but not deep so directly behind my house is a wrap-around patio and further back, a moderately sized yard full of desert-colored rocks, lava rocks and a few bushes. Since my house is built on a hill, the yard slopes at a 90 degree angle at the back and the sandy soil is held in place by wooden beams to prevent errosion. Back another ten feet is the fence that runs the length of my yard and within this trench are three large bushes that are spaced far apart. We placed the bird feeder in between two of the bushes and so began the struggle to provide food for wild birds but at the same time not create a killing field for predators.

The bird feeder was the recommended six feet above ground but doves and pigeons are too heavy to land on the feeder so they wait at the bottom for the multitude of seeds thrown out by the sparrows and finches. After I discovered the body of a dove minus its head, I started to observe what other types of animals entered my backyard. That is when I learned the neighborhood cats were hiding in the bushes next to the feeder and ambushing the doves. I love cats and share my home with a domestic short-haired one even though I am allergic to cats. People need to understand that thousands of birds are killed every year when they allow their cats to wander outside. Anyway, I moved the bird feeder out of the trench and placed it into the ground xeriscaped with rocks so the cats couldn't ambush the doves anymore.

Hurrah! A victory for the meek in life because I thought I had made a safe haven for my fine-feathered friends, but not so fast. All those seeds falling to the ground germinated and grass started growing between all the rocks. Quite a mass of seeds ended up under the rocks and believe me, it is not easy to pull grass lodged under rocks and I didn't want to use a chemical to stop the grass because it might hurt the birds. So I decided to buy a free standing bird feeder and place it on my cement patio even though it meant cleaning the patio every day of seeds and big pigeon poop.

This eliminated the problem of grass growing in unwanted places. However, I found another body of a dove near the sliding glass door that leads out to the patio. Further investigation revealed that a hawk was stalking the birds, watching for a chance to swoop in from the pine tree and grab some hapless victum. I planted three Nandina bushes to provide additional shelter for the small birds from sky-born predators.

It was a delight to watch young sparrows dancing around the patio, chirping at their mothers for food and all the fledglings had to do was pick up seed from the ground. But it must be hard to cut those regurgitation strings. The mature Firethorn bush next to the bird feeder bristled with so many sparrows and their young that my brother-in-law commented, "Man, They come pouring out of that bush!"

I was happy to support pigeons, doves, sparrows and finches but my patio became very messy with droppings and feathers. One day I looked up at my neighbor's roof and counted about 35 pigeons waiting for me to finish filling the bird feeders. Even though my neighbor is a thoughtful man, I worried he would dislike the pigeons leaving their calling card on his roof and porch and that he might contact animal control to haul them off. So I wracked my brain and found the best solution was to purchase a $21 seed catcher that hangs under the feeder since they scooped up what fell to the ground. Initially, it didn't work because the pigeons figured out how to sit on the catcher and tip the seed out. This problem was corrected by pulling twine through the four holes at the top of the cone and attaching the ends to the catcher connector to stabilize it.

One day, as I was blissfully enjoying the view of the Sandia mountains while cleaning the patio, I heard the rustling of an animal in the Firethorn bush. Out of the bush, onto the sidewalk ran a roadrunner. To my horror, the roadrunner held a young sparrow in its beak. I instinctively ran after the roadrunner trying to startle it so it would loosen its death grip. But he hopped onto my neighbor's fence and quickly disappeared without dropping the sparrow. So I wracked my brain again and remembered a cartoon I watched as a kid that portrayed the arch enemy of the roadrunner as a coyote. So I visited my neighborhood nursery, found a lifesize statue of a coyote and placed in the right side of the backyard where the roadrunner had exited. Hah! Problem solved, I thought, until my husband showed me a photograph on his digital camera of the roadrunner entering the backyard from the left side. So, I purchased another lifesize statue of a coyote and placed it on the left side of the yard after verifying that hawks and coyotes prey upon roadrunners.

Sitting on my living room floor one morning as I was gazing out the sliding glass door, I saw the roadrunner appear near the rear of my backyard. I quickly opened the door, ran after the roadrunner and yelled at him to leave. He jumped on the rear fence so I threw xeriscaped rocks taking careful aim so the rocks hit the fence below him. He looked down where the rocks made contact but didn't budge. So I grabbed my garden hose and directed the spray at him. He jumped into the pine tree so I yanked the hose further out and sprayed at him in the pine tree. He left my yard and I triumphantly went back inside my house congratulating myself on protecting the sparrows. Ten minutes later I looked out and saw the roadrunner in my backyard! I gave chase a couple of more times during the week and finally realized, I can't protect the birds from predators and I am a not so wily coyote. You can see the photo of the roadrunner standing next to the coyote statue thumbing his beak at me. Besides, my neighbors probably thought I was losing my mind when they saw me running around my backyard yelling.

The interconnectedness of the feeding chain was established in perfect harmony millions of years ago and one should not try to alter it.  Sometimes, I think Man belongs at the bottom of the feeding chain. I ended up putting the bird feeder back in the original spot at the back of the yard against the fence between two bushes. However, my husband erected wire mesh at the side of the bushes so the cats cannot hide in them, jump out and ambush the doves. However, I still see hawks scouting our yard, from time to time.

Even though I couldn't chase off the predators, I feel that by feeding the birds in the spring, I helped many more fledglings survive than could have without the bird feeders.  It is largely a numbers game and that is why SO many are born.  For instance, the female sea turtle lays between 50 to 200 eggs on the beach but only .01% of the hatchlings usually survive the sprint to the ocean.  Also, feeding the birds in the winter is important because food is scarce.

I concluded that providing food, shelter, water and nesting places naturally is the best policy so I will share with you how to provide for birds this way, in my next article.