Yes, I have pirates in my yard, in the middle of Missouri. Thieven' little scoundrels, that's what they are! Today, I went to gather some pale purple coneflower seeds and found I was almost too late to the party. As I identified the first coneflower head from wince I could harvest seed, my eyes, now-trained-for-finding-coneflower-seed heads, scanned the field, looking for more. I waded deeper into the weeds and wondered why I wasn't finding more seed heads.
I listened as my ever-present Goldfinches twittered overhead and finally landed in the nearby oak trees, noisily letting me know they were not happy about my presence in their favorite feeding area.
Then I slowly put two and two together. The reason I have less coneflower seed is because of the flying, yellow thieves that were chiding me from the safety of the trees!
My friend Aya Katz, defines "pirates / piracy" in this article (
http://theodosiaandthepirates.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-karankawa-indians.html ) as:
This
brings us back to the meaning of piracy. Piracy would mean preying on
your own. Privateering means preying on enemy ships. The whole
difference between the two is where you draw the circle. If the Spanish
are your allies, then preying on them is piracy. If they are your
legally acknowledged enemies, it is privateering.
I am the goldfinches' ally and they are taking advantage of my goodwill (and my seeds) and committing piracy! Yeeaarrrggghhhh!!! There is a plentiful bounty of rattlesnake master and prairie blazing star seeds to satiate the Goldfinches so I don't feel badly about confiscating the coneflower seed heads.
I was able to find a few seed heads and I quickly cut them off and moved them to a safer location so that I can break the seeds loose and redistribute them this winter. Of course, if you examine these seed heads closely, you really do have to admire the skill that it takes to get the seeds out without poking their little eyes out!
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| Harvested seed |
