I went to the farm to work on a couple of projects yesterday. It was a beautiful day and when I stopped for lunch, I took my lunch to an outdoor picnic table. The three grandchildren who live a the farm brought their lunches out from the house and joined me. I brought an apple with my lunch and I took out my pocket knife, as is my habit, and quartered the apple, removing bit of the core with the seeds from each piece. After I finished my lunch, I took the bits of uneaten core over to the chicken coop and threw it to the chickens, who scrambled and fought over the bits of apple. Our two granddaughters went into the chicken enclosure and played with the chickens for a few minutes after lunch. It was interesting to watch the differences in their approach. Our oldest granddaughter has played with the chickens since they were tiny chicks. She loves to hold them. She goes into the enclosure and calls out “chick, chick, chick!” and they come running to her. She knows how to pick up a chicken and hold it. The younger one hasn’t got quite the same touch. She is gentle with the birds, but finds it more difficult to catch one to hold. She will run at the chickens which causes them to scatter.

We had chickens at our place when I was growing up. We didn’t raise layers and got our eggs from a commercial farm near our town. Our birds were raised for the freezer. Among my chores were feeding and changing the water in the chicken coop and, on occasion, cleaning the coop, a chore that I did not like. I also was no fan of butchering day, which I remember more in terms of smell than any other sense.

If you were to ask my eldest granddaughter, she would tell you that she loves chickens. She calls them by name, a practice that is manageable with the 19 hens of mixed breeds that they are raising as egg producers. Before long there will be a larger number of meat birds that all look the same. Still, she has an eye for the birds and subtle distinctions. She will probably be much better than I at identifying individual birds. Still, if you had asked me as a child, I would not have said that I loved chickens. I probably would have made a comment similar to the one that I have made several times in reference to the chickens at the farm: “When you look at a chicken you realize that there is a whole lot of bird and not very much brain.”

There were a couple of pet parakeets in our home when I was growing up as well as at least one canary. I wasn’t much of a fan of the birds. They were noisy and messy. My favorite pets were the family dogs.

I do, however, enjoy watching birds. We have fed birds off and on for years and at times we have had quite a few bird feeders in our yard. I even have a small bird feeder, decorated by grandchildren, that I hang from our camper when it is parked in the same place for several days just to attract a few local birds for viewing. And I was excited the other day to see my first hummingbird of the season. They fascinate me.

On the other hand, I have no desire to hold one.

I think that one of the things that fascinates me about all birds is the way they move. Despite the fact that the grocery store packages chicken legs four to a package, the birds only have two each and they do a pretty good job of balancing on them. Chickens walk differently from ducks and the finches drawn to the feeders have feet that enable them to hang upside down. The hummingbirds are so fast that all I notice are the wings and beak and I don’t pay attention to their feet. Still there is something distinctive about the movement of a bird: relative speed with a capacity to change direction quickly.

Here in the Skagit valley, the Swans - trumpeter, mute, and tundra - have left for the summer. They along with tens of thousands of snow geese spend about half of the year here and move north for the other half of the year. The birds who go south when the swans are around have returned, but they are, for the most part smaller. Among my favorite summer birds are the swallows. There are eight species of swallows that spend winters in the tropics and migrate north to nest. I think that the ones I see most often are probably common barn swallows, but they but on an airshow each time I see them. They are capable of some pretty impressive arial maneuvers as they feast on flying insects too small for me to see as i watch them.

Public Radio plays a program called “Bird Note” that airs at the time I’m driving to the farm in the morning. On days when I go up there, I enjoy hearing about flickers and buffleheads and the difference between Swainson’s Thrush and the Hermit Thrush, even though I doubt that I could make the identification from their songs as a true birder would.

I’m grateful for the chickens for the gift of their eggs, but I’ve no great desire to hold and cuddle them like our granddaughters. I haven’t learned their names. Still, I’ve helped fix up their enclosure and I’ll be making notes later this week as I take a look at the neighbor’s chicken tractor. I know our daughter in law is hoping I’ll help make a similar one for their birds. I’m inclined to do so. I’m glad our grandchildren are growing up with an appreciation for birds and their contributions to our lives. All the same, it is a very small amount of brain for such a big bird. For now I’ll reserve the word “love” for other creatures.