Paddy in Winter: An Excerpt

Early next month, my company, Full Circle Press LLC, will re-publish Paddy: A Ruffed Grouse Chooses Our Farm by Vivian Miller Moore.

This is a wonderful story about a young bird who comes to live on the farm Vivian owns with her husband Wil. Here's an excerpt from the book in which Vivian describes her efforts to keep Paddy in food during the winter.

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Just when I thought we had a routine, Paddy changed it. One morning I went out but couldn’t find him. I called a few times but heard nothing, no movements anywhere. Since I’d already made the trek, I took out the dish to leave a few pieces of corn on the tedder.

As soon as I rattled it, I heard Paddy tune up with a very excited “whisp-whisp. whisp-whisp.” There he was, sitting on a branch directly over my head. He lifted his wings as soon as I spotted him and dropped down to the snow at the front edge of the lean-to. He was very content to sit on the cold metal of the tedder and eat but I made an impromptu platform with a flat board that I tied to a couple of round steel rods on the tedder. Now I could observe another of his eating habits.

I fed him seeds from two different winter squash called Delicata and Sweet Dumpling. When I cook the squash, I pierce them, bake them whole then scoop out their seeds on a cookie sheet. The seeds go back in the oven while it’s still warm, and stay there until I think of them the next day. Sometimes, if I take them out too soon, little bits of the sticky squash pulp remain on the seed. Paddy loved the squash seeds but not this sticky pulp.

If he got his face dirty, he’d rub both sides of his beak on his perch or jump down to wipe his head back and forth in leaves and dirt on the ground. He’d clean one side of his face then the other. If he went by a snow bank on the way down from his eating platform, he quickly “washed” his face in the snow. The board I set up for an eating station turned out to be a wonderful addition for him because he could rub the squash debris off on its rough edges.

Once Paddy ate all he wanted, he would find some snow to eat. Not a lot, but most of the time he made a point of doing it. Then he’d return to a favorite perching place, fluff out his feathers and sit. A soft, contented sound usually accompanied his feather arranging. He didn’t sit and preen as other birds do. Instead, he’d stretch, lift the feathers all over his body, then let them fall into place.