sunflowers in the morning....

So... I know it's not the prettiest pic around, but I've found, as I've gotten older that pretty doesn't always matter to me anymore.  I really really like these wild sunflowers... 

I don't know for sure how they origionally seeded in my yard, but these are the wild variety of sunflower that grows in fields throughout Texas... not so much in cow pastures, as cattle seem to delight in the seedlings in the spring. 

Usually, In the spring, I have hundreds of these seedlings along a wooden fence and I fastidiously clean them out to one or two plants.  This year, I got delayed, and they were 3 to 4 feet tall before I got to them.  A few got crowded out naturally, but the rest came up and were blooming before I even had a chance to think about thinning them, and the flowers were so cheerful perched above the velvety green leaves

 that I left them thinking they weren't doing any harm. 

Now they're going to seed, the leaves are browning, and they're decidedly ugly, weedy looking things anywhere from 4 to 8 feet tall... and I would definitely be out there with machete in hand if it weren't for one thing...

Every morning, I sit and watch cardinals, song sparrows, purple finches (they call them purple, the males have a raspberry red head and a decent little chirping song) and the mourning doves come and have their breakfast.  I've even seen house wrens and mockingbirds come down and search out insects, and particularly the ants that seem to colonize the stems.  It's really quite fascinating to watch them. 

I used to put out bird seed.  But the Grackles and English Sparrows would attack the feeders.  These two species don't seem to be bothering my sunflowers. 

So yes, the sunflowers, at this particular stage of their life, look ugly and weedy.  But I'm leaving them.  I enjoy them too much...