I enjoy watching the antics of the birds and rabbits that arrive for the feast.
[This article was originally published at the Prison Journalism Project and appears here with author’s permission]
Every morning, I toss a large handful of dry oatmeal flakes onto the prison’s recreation yard to feed the animals.
Some mornings I see starlings catching butterflies or fighting each other. On others, I see barn sparrows ignoring the starling’s aggressive antics, chirping with excitement and occasionally pecking at the ground. Or I might see a family of rusty tan rabbits munching on grass.
The rabbits normally wait for me to toss the oatmeal. I’ve walked within 3 feet of them before, but some bound away from me if I get close. Others wait, staying totally still, like I can’t see them.
Many people live such fast-paced and focused lives that they don’t pay attention to much beyond their immediate concerns. It’s the same for a lot of us in prison. We have jobs, rehabilitation programs, educational classes and our recreation time. It can be easy to miss the wildlife if you are in classrooms and working all day. But I’ve found that I can slow down and enjoy the nature that surrounds me, just by throwing out a handful of cheap oatmeal each day.
This summer, a few barn sparrows arrived at our prison with their babies. The chicks often flutter their feathers, begging their parents to feed them food they are literally standing on. Each time, a parent picks up the oat flakes and places the food in the waiting mouth of their chick.
My old cellmate, David Harmon, once saw this and laughed.
“That’s a classic case of failure to launch,” he joked.
Black starlings also show up. Each morning, they bicker with each other while establishing a pecking order. Once the hierarchy is settled, the dominant starlings pick up as many pieces of oatmeal as they can before they are challenged again. Then they flutter away indignantly, causing sparrows to dance out of the way or up to the safety of a prison fence.
Every once in a while, a seagull will glide down to get a piece of the feeding frenzy. The sparrows, starlings and small bunnies quickly move away from the large white bird as it swaggers up to the oats. The momma rabbit, however, never seems intimidated. She keeps her head down while she munches on her breakfast.
The seagull’s beady eyes take in the pieces of oatmeal. Then it makes a cacophonous screech that sounds like a cry of disgust before flying away.
Once the seagull is gone, the bunnies meander back, the starlings bicker again to reestablish a pecking order, and the sparrows bounce on their delicate legs to the remaining oatmeal.
Eventually most of the oatmeal is eaten. The rabbits leave first, hopping over to a grassy area a few feet away. Sometimes you’ll see the momma rabbit sprawled out, napping on the grass, but with her eyes barely open. She still has four or five of her babies nearby.
Some of these young rabbits seem to play a game. They stand face to face a foot or so away from each other until one flinches forward, causing the other one to hop straight up in the air. Sometimes the rabbit that flinches will run underneath the hopping rabbit.
Once the rabbits have left the oatmeal, the starlings take off in their group. But the sparrows linger, sifting through the dirt to grab any remaining crumbs.
The intrigue and joy I get from seeing the antics of wildlife is worth the money I spend on oatmeal. This ritual has even attracted conversation with people I’d probably never speak with otherwise. People ask me questions, make comments about something they see, or offer me their uneaten dinner rolls to feed the birds.
This happened over the summer with a man named Emmanuel Granados, who turned out to be an amateur botanist. Granados asked me one day if I fed the birds oatmeal. When I told him I did, he got excited.
“The bunnies like that too,” he said. “I saw them eating.”
While some animals migrate away from Idaho during the winter, the sparrows will stay. When the cold weather arrives, I plan to mix crushed peanuts with the oatmeal to give the sparrows some fat and protein. I want to help them stay warm.