I live on a 1/3 acre aviary. Forget the groundhogs who just finished off the new hostas I planted two weeks ago. Yeh, they're cute and move admirably faster than any portly rodent should, but I'm about to wage Carl Spackler-inspired war. If you don't know Carl, you should - watch this. The deer aren't improving the landscape situation either but, they're deer and, they remind me of idyllic childhood forest explorations and hobbits so, they get a pass.But back to the aviary.
This home and those around it are surrounded by large, mature evergreen and deciduous (oooo, official word) trees that host approximately 366,187 individual birds when it's not snowing. I don't know how birds learn but they've stopped flying into the big living room picture window, which has left Dog #1 without bird carcasses to "hunt" and swallow whole the next morning (and I still let him lick me?). So they've stopped committing birdicide, but they've started TALKING. I, KNOW. What kind of everyday non-exotic parrot birds talk, you're asking? I don't have any earthly idea, but I've started to name them based on what they say. And if what they say reflects their "truth in the universe" then, there's drama and heartache and.....reality-TV-like stuff going on between the branches.
For example...
There are "screw it" birds. Everywhere. That's what they say, all day long. I finally used my superior vestibulocochlear apparatus to locate one and realized that the "screw it" bird is actually, dismayingly, the cardinal. You know...the striking red bird on all the Christmas cards. The bird experts say they're actually calling "birdie" but, maybe that's because they're standing in a field with conspicuous recording equipment and, you know, the birds are showing off. Here in western Pennsylvania suburbia, birds get REAL. I know a "screw it" when I hear one. So there's that, and then the "Murray" bird. I haven't figured out what it actually is but when the two talk together, all you hear is "Screw it, Murray!", over and over and over. I don't know who Murray is but he's been hen-pecked (ha!) all summer. I wouldn't be surprised if the birdicides restarted and we found Murray carcasses in the yard, each with tiny little bottles of Jack Daniels clutched in their little Murray claws.
So that's a compelling little piece of birdarama, and adding to it is the "DO it" bird. It's like the devil sitting on your shoulder while you're on the back patio, challenging you to eat that third grilled cheeseburger, or, mocking poor Murray who's sitting at the birdie bar pouring his heart out to the bird-tender (pun, so bad it's good). There's also a "pur-dee, girl-EE" bird. You can make up your own story about that one. I just look over my shoulder when it starts, to be sure the lawn boys aren't peeking over the fence.
So these birds speak in simple nouns, adjectives and verbs. It could be one giant enraged cardinal responsible for all of it, for all I know. But whatever....put it all together and you hear a story of bird love, betrayal and heartache. And as I typed that sentence a large bird smacked the big picture window, I kid you not. Honest to goodness.
Hmmmmm....
So anyway, no redemption and no renewal in this suburban bird story, yet. But we should all keep listening for the "dude, it's all good" and the, "Murray, come home! (or in other words, 'screw me, Murray!')" bird songs. Because Murray deserves another chance.
But that groundhog? "Do it, Carl. Do it."
