Barney

For the past 10 days we've had a purple finch visiting our thistle feeder. He's been easy to identify because he has a feather on his little head that is broken and sticking out at an odd angle. Joe was able to get quite close to him and discovered that he must have sustained an injury - either an animal caught him and he was lucky enough to escape, or perhaps he flew into a window.

He spent a lot of time on our feeder at first, the first day we noticed him he was there all afternoon, sleeping on and off, eating a few seeds and then just resting.

I was worried about him but knew there wasn't much I could do other than let nature take its course. I didn't know what we'd find when we came home from Maine, would he gone? Recovered and moved on, or succumbed to his injuries? I resigned myself to the not knowing but was very pleasantly surprised to see him still visiting our feeder and spending quite a bit of time there. I see it as a good sign that he's eating, I imagine if he was in very dire condition he'd just hole up somewhere and stop eating.

It seemed appropriate to give him a name since he's been around so much, I didn't feel right just calling him "that purple finch" or "our birdie". Barney seemed appropriate since he's purple.... after all, when Wilson was 4 he named Joe's Saturn Barney because it was plum-colored. Feel better soon, Barney!