It's been an interesting week for me, bird-wise, and it's only Wednesday.
This past Monday I was sitting it line at the James Coney Island getting my chili fix after work. It was a beautiful evening, the lid was down on the Miata, and the line was long at the JCI. The center where the JCI sits is surrounded by big old oak trees, and there were thousands and thousands of grackles and starlings zooming around and raising a ruckus.
I like grackles. They're aggressive but they're honest about it. Not like Blue Jays. Jays always seem to have some list they're keeping up with, some obsessive Must Patrol This Tree thing going on. Grackles, they're just looking for a handout. Always.
I had a bag of chips on the passenger seat and I decided to play with the birds while I waited. Now, a smart person who is sitting still in a convertible and who decides to play with the birds does so in a very controlled manner. To avoid massing of hungry beaks flying above one's upholstery, you know. So I opened the chips and took one out. Broke it into four pieces and tossed them as far as I could from my car, about 6 feet.
Nothing. Not a single bird took to it. Strange. A few minutes later I had pulled up in the line along with the other hungry people and was one car away from the window. I looked to my right and, sitting in the top of a small crepe myrtle was a nice big grackle with a chunk of chip in his mouth, looking at me. I smiled. I said to him, "you're welcome," and turned away. Not 20 seconds later something fell onto my hand and rolled onto the passenger seat beside me. It was a cluster of three pink crepe myrtle blossoms. I think that bird liked my chip.
When I got home tonight I was sitting out back talking on the phone and I looked up to see a beautiful wood pecker having supper in the sugar maple near my back fence. The red feathers on his head were vivid and I loved the black speckling on his wings.
Then, tonight, I walked out into the back yard after supper to enjoy the air a little and look who was sitting on the Time Warner Cable cable that runs from my house across my back yard? He wasn't impressed by me. I was impressed by HIM!
 Labels: miata, personal urban drama |
