Saturday. There he was. Looking in the window.
Watching me.
The feeder is empty.
It is apparently time to fill it.
This morning there were six sparrows out front. I suspect they’re his servants.
I will fill the feeder tonight.
I’m too afraid to disobey.
(I swear it’s the same bird I wrote about in March.)
This morning, while I was walking the dog, I saw something at the base of a tree. Fortunately Cardiff was distracted by a leaf blowing past, so he didn’t notice it until I had a chance to investigate.
A young bird — a woodpecker of some sort — was hopping and fluttering around the tree, trying to get enough of a grip to climb up it. I attached Cardiff to a nearby fence so he wouldn’t be able to scare or hurt the bird, and then picked up the bird. It was freaked out and started cheeping and flapping and tried to peck my fingers (which might have hurt if the bird’s beak had been closed).
The bird was gripping my finger pretty tight with both feet and it was flapping pretty well, so I put it in a hole in the tree where a limb had been torn off in a storm over the summer. I figured if the bird was hurt or just stunned at least it’d be safer there than on the ground where kids and dogs and cats could get at it.
The bird immediately flipped itself off the ledge and took off in the air. I can’t find anything online, but I suspect that maybe woodpeckers are birds that can’t really take off from the ground like sparrows and pigeons can. I did find out that what it was, was probably a juvenile red-bellied or possibly hairy woodpecker (I’ll let you all giggle like 13-year-old boys over that one).
Woodpeckers aren’t exactly common in Baltimore City, but this is the second one I’ve seen this year.
If I see any animal of any sort left in someone’s car I will do some combination of the following:
I do not even care that breaking your car window is illegal. I’ll stand right by the car and wait until the cops show up and explain why I did it.
“I left the window open a crack” is not acceptable.
During winter, I started feeding the birds. I bought two of those little cage things and some suet blocks and hung them outside the front window. Since the snow’s nearly completely gone (except for the large, dirty piles in parking lots, of course), refilling it wasn’t really a high priority. I figured the birds would be able to find bugs and seeding things on their own.
Until last night.
I was sitting on the sofa, minding my own business, poking around on Facebook or something as equally important when I had the feeling I was being watched. Not the usual “oh there’s a cat staring at me” watched. A different “I’m being watched.”
I looked at the window. There he was — decked out in red, eyes gleaming. The Cardinal. And he was looking right at me. (Insert the Psycho “screeching violins” bit here.)
Later that evening, when the coast was clear, I refilled the feeders.