Like many retired people, Virginia Enella enjoys life in Orlando, Florida. She lives in a very
close-knit gated community there where she tends to her grandchildren full-time.
Several years ago we went to a resort area in Northern Minnesota. One of the days the weather was bad so we decided to go into town shopping. As with most resort towns there were many gift and specialty shops. We were in one of the shops at the top of the hour and we heard a bird chirping. I looked around and noticed that the sound was coming from a bird clock. The chirping for that hour was from a chickadee.
We enjoy watching birds come to the feeders that we have in our yard. I liked the bird clock because in place of the numbers on the face of the clock was a picture of a different song bird. At the top of each hour the bird clock would play the song of that particular bird. The clock was expensive, but we thought that it would be a nice souvenir from the trip and would look nice in our home.
When we got home we hung the bird clock close to the window that over looks the bird feeders and bath. In order to set the clock for the right time you need to start at 12:00 and work through each hour until you get to the right time. We were setting the clock at 11:00 so this meant that we needed to go through each of the songs on the bird clock. The sounds coming from the clock were of great interest to our cats. They were climbing on us and were trying to find out where the noises were coming from. Once we hung the clock the cats would come running on the top of the hour to see where the bird was. The clock does have a light sensor on it. During the night when the room is dark the volume is much lower than when there is light on in the room.
After a period of time we did not even notice the bird clock chirping on the top of each hour, because we were used to it. Even the cats lost their curiosity for the clock. Once we had purchased the bird clock we noticed that there were several varieties of similar clocks. Some of the clocks had different breeds of dogs on them that would bark at the top of each hour. There were also wild animal clocks that featured the noise of each animal. My husband hunts water fowl. In one of his hunting magazines they were selling a clock that featured a different duck or goose for each hour. We thought it would be funny to have several of the different clocks. On the top of each hour you would have a wide variety of sounds.
Now that we have had the bird clock for several years we have turned the sound off. Some of our guests found it annoying, especially in the morning because it is located close to one of our guest rooms. We have also found that now the bird clock is very common place and many are of much poorer quality than the one we purchased.
