The Birds

The birds are going nutty.  I am not sure what is afoot (awing?), but the birds are, literally, at my door.

A few evenings ago, I opened my front door to “feel” the weather.  I had no sooner poked my head out the open door when a chickadee shot out from the Mayday tree, about twenty feet away, and arrowed straight over to my face.  The chickadee hovered there, about a foot from my nose, flapping its wings like crazy for a second, before both of us made surprised retreats.

“What are you doing?” I yelled out to the bird as it fluttered away up and over the roof of my house.

Last evening, a far more bizarre event occurred.  While video-chatting with Desiree in Manila on my smarter-than-me-phone, I heard a weird noise at my front door.  Not quite scratching and far less than a knock.

“I’m hearing a weird noise?” I told Desiree.  “Come with me.”  Holding my phone in hand, I tramped to the front entry and cautiously pulled open the door.

With the door only partially open, a pigeon exploded into motion above me.  Flapping its wings like crazy, the pigeon attempted to fly inside over the top of the door.  “Noooo.”  Raising both hands (Desiree included), I tried to shoo the bird back out.  Confronted by me, the bird tried to flap around to the open side of the door.  The loss of lift soon saw the pigeon plopped on my floor just inside the door.

Some twenty years ago, my cat, Denver, deposited a live starling inside my house.  Between me and the cat chasing the bird around the inside of the house, we made quite a mess of things.  Determined not to allow the pigeon the same opportunity, I bent down, holding the phone so Desiree could see the bird, and scooped the bird back out the door.  After doing so, I opened the door and watched the bird fly off past my solar array.

“That’s a big bird!” Desiree announced. 

I held the phone so we could see each other again.  “You saw that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Weird.  I have no idea what that was all about.”

Posted today are the feathers I picked up from tile of my entry after the bird made a panicky exit.

—Mitchell Hegman