Kirby: Nature puts on its late spring show

“Sometimes the road less traveled, is less traveled for a reason,”

– Jerry Seinfeld

I've seen a lot of brown thrashers this spring.

While my favorite cardinals have been swooping around the yard and lighting on fence posts, the thrashers have been keeping low, rushing on the ground like road runners late for coyote encounters.

They hustle. And if the sun hits them right, their dull brown feathers reflect a copper glow I'd never noticed before.

As most of you know the brown thrasher is Georgia's state bird. The archives of The Chronicle indicate a 1928 meeting of state garden clubs pushed through the designation. There had been some support for the more colorful red-headed woodpecker, but tree owners objected, the newspaper said.

The other thing I've noticed lately is a lot more chipmunks.

They are almost the same color as the thrashers and have been running around the trees as I take my morning walks in the neighborhood.

Chipmunks are surprisingly fast, and they scamper with their tails in the air like the “sand flag” on the back of a 1960s dune buggy.

Of course if you're watching the chipmunks as you walk around my neighborhood, you're bound to see the squirrels, which are everywhere.

It must have been a romantic late winter for squirrels because I see so many of the little gray tree-rats, chasing each other up and down, dodging cars in the street, jabbering in their clicking, squeaking squirrel talk.

Then they'll tumble and roll and I have to laugh.

"Nature's pretty wonderful," I will think to myself as I continue my morning walks. Then I come upon a van.

It was parked up the street and I had seen a man leaving it with ladder on his shoulder. The side of the van answered my curiosity.

"Pest removal" it read in big type. It also had pictures of birds, squirrels, and a coiled snake. As a homeowner who once found a snake on the front porch, a chipmunk in the garage and even had a bird come down the hot water heater vent and into the house, I cringe.

Nature is good, but it’s best kept outside.

BIRTHDAY TODAY: June 5 was the birthday of the late Lou Brissie, of North Augusta, a World War II hero who overcame his battle injuries to become a major league baseball all-star pitcher. Those of you who knew him, knew what a special guy he was.

TODAY'S JOKE: A retiree and his wife purchased a new computer but ran into considerable difficulty in setting it up. They called tech support, but it didn't help much.

Finally, in frustration, the husband shouted, "Look, can't you just explain what I should do as if I were a small child?"

"OK," the the computer support tech. "Son, could you please put your mommy on the phone?"