Category Archives: Home & Family

About six months ago, my husband,   John Plocher carved me a cactus valentine. He got the idea from a cactus we saw at Poot’s House of Cactus in Ripon, California. Our carved cactus is one of the many huge prickly pear Opuntia or nopales paddle cactuses in our yard. Before our neighborhood of houses was built in Willow Glen, local historians tell us that there was a chicken farm and a prickly pear cactus farm on the land.

John says he was inspired to take a knife to the cactus by it poking him one too many times while he was working in the garage. I admit I did not notice
his creation until he pointed it out but it makes a funny addition and does not bother the cactus.

Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

Our 15-year-old Cockatiel “Princess Birdie” has been very ill recently. She had a bacterial and fungal infection and spent several days in the For the Birds hospital:

• For the Birds
  Fern Van Sant DVM
  1136 South De Anza Blvd., Suite B
  San Jose, California 95129
  (408) 255-1739

Our family learned how to give medicine and nursing to a creature the size of my hand. She also has new perches for her cages (one in the kitchen and the other in my office) and new food. Birdie is now feeling much better.

Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

We live on the

Guadalupe River in San Jose, CA where there are
many birds and many kinds of birds. This spring, we are beset
by a particularly noisy

Mockingbird who has started singing outside of our windows
for much of the night. From the descriptions I have read,
this is probably a male bird seeking a mate. I hope he finds
happiness soon because I am tired of being woken up by his lovelorn
songs.

For many years, I have seen mockingbirds chasing squirrels and other birds
but this is the first time our garden has hosted a persistent night
singer. According to
Wikipedia

“The Northern Mockingbird, in addition to being a good mimic, is also one of the loudest and most constantly vocal of birds. It often sings through the night, especially unmated males, or when the moon is full. It sings year-round except sometimes for the late-summer molting season. Individual males have repertoires of 50 to 200 songs; females sing as well, but more quietly and less often than males. Mockingbirds usually sing the loudest in the twilight of the early morning when the sun is on the horizon.”

There were so many different songs, I wasn’t sure it was just one bird
singing. Then I read the following from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s

All About Birds web page: “If you’ve been hearing an endless string of
10 or 15 different birds singing outside your house, you might have a
Northern Mockingbird in your yard.” I have enjoyed reading up on
our garden visitor, happy to have a chance to check out the new
and ambitious Encyclopedia of Life
which seeks to “organize and make available via the Internet virtually all information about life present on Earth.”

On my walk last night, I saw a mockingbird on a telephone wire over
our street, loudly singing many different birds’ songs in quick succession.
True to his latin name Mimus polyglottos, the many-tongued mimic
sang everyone’s song as his own.