“YES! I’ll take a second cuppa before work.
Thank you, honey.”
This morning is a special sort of Monday, since my hubby and I both crawled out of bed at daybreak, affording us some extra bird-watching, outside-marveling-at-creation time together before the hustle and bustle of yet another work week.
Our teeny slice of heaven, immediately beyond the back door, is an itty-bitty parcel of dirt that packs a punch in terms of wild things. Skinks and lizards and birds, oh my!
“Hello, Mr. Cardinal, good to see you again!”
“Look! I think that’s a chickadee pair feeding their babies!”
“See the thrasher trying to get into that peanut shell?”
These are all wild things we see on the regular, regardless of the permanent hum of I-95 in the background.
And in spite of the neighborhood grass blowers and lawn mowers that often wake up before we do.
I settle into my second dose of coffee, watching my man hang the refilled hummingbird feeder at just the right height in our Lion’s Head maple. Our farm, now completely refueled with nectar and dried meal worms and hot pepper sunflower chips and millet.
We aren’t relying on Merlin this morning to tell us who is flying in for a bite, the usual bird songs now easy to anticipate and recognize.
The robin.
The blue bird of happiness.
The titmouse.
The singsong nature of the backyard – a euphony – welcoming a new day, and dare I imagine, also in praise of the hand that feeds them? Could it be that somehow, these little creatures are as happy to see us as we are them?
All of creation sings, indeed.
And, the mockingbird dive-bombs the thrasher, getting it out of the mealworms scattered beneath the feeders.
A male cardinal snaps it wings at a fledgling downy, driving it off of the seed cylinder.
And a Carolina wren stands it’s ground atop a rotting piece of wood by the firepit, unbothered by the robin trying to get in on the bug action.
We are quietly observing what nature does back here, just on the outside of the inside. Never bored with the show. There is a rhythm that is familiar, and peace-giving. Comforting. Needed. And…
A Cacophony…it sounds like a CACOPHONY!!
What is happening?
In an instant, there is chaos and worry.
Our bird friends are in distress.
The mockingbird and wrens and the bluebirds and the cardinals,
joining together with wretched voices, alarming that there is danger.
They perch atop the back fence, frantically yelling just beyond.
My other half heads behind the fence to see if there is a cat to shoo away, but then I see it.
The nesting box.
There is a nesting box where the flying feathers and screetching sounds have failed to work.
“Honey – come back! It’s a snake! It’s a snake!”
In one fell swoop, the baby bird falls from the serpent’s jaws to the ground as the machete tosses it’s victim into the grass.
Our feathered friends are no where to be found, nor heard, as the snake’s severed head’s tongue smells the air, in search of it’s deathbed morsel.
Silence.
A quiet fitting for the moment.
There’s one less bluebird this spring.
And there’s one less ratsnake, too.
Both casualties of the ebb and flow – euphonic and cacophonic – our backyard.
“No thank you, honey. No more coffee for me right now.”
the toenail 