Little Sparrow and I

have a new code at work for when I am running late from break or lunch. She sits on the side of the building with no perch whatsoever as if to say, you are cutting it close. I didn't take heed and lost 5 whole minutes in the morning the other morning. Now I am aware of her code. I thought she was just showing off to me. She was picking up worms and then did that fancy trick and I do know that showing off is not like the sparrows at all. They are so very humble all of the time, except in emergencies, like when "Mommy" is late for work, at work. "Go figure"

Outlines of the table settings were left

from the teaparty that the Robins had given and Mr Blackbird seemed very grateful to have been the first to hear that the hatchlings had been laid. Mrs. Robin, only very sparingly left the nest until she was sure that it was warm enough for her eggs to survive.
Mr. Robin slowed down on his constant bickering and picking or pecking at every false move that Mrs. Robin made and all seemed at peace with the world. It is just at such a time as this that trajedy struck the bird community.
Every so often, Mrs. Robin puts out a little safety journal about some of the important things to be careful about in the community in and about the building. This season was no different, except that with the new construction there were flying hardhat warnings and muddy big truck warnings but the ever present warning is the one about sunglare. Sunglare can blind a bird and make it impossible for them to see the window until they have already struck it too hard to survive the blow. Every season, there are those birds who either don't take heed or didn't get the communication. Mrs. Robin always takes these accidents to heart and tries to figure out how to prevent the next catastrophie.
Tiny, the sparrow was just such a little catastrophie. He stayed aloof from everyone and for 2 or three days when I went around on my daily stroll, he got so flustered that he didn't know what to do. I truly thought it was odd that he flew as though no one had gotten the message to him that I was a friend.
I was trying to think of a story about him when the worst happened and Mrs Robin was the one who gave me the very sad news. He is gone, that Tiny is. It seems that he flew directly into the sunglare in the glass on the building and did not survive. The noise was horrible. Between the construction noise and the crying cardinals, there was not a dry eye in the entire bird community. The birds are all very deliberate in their condolensces and they have a very interesting tradition of flying in condolence formations for days after the passing of one of their comerades. They don't do any of their usual chores or things that they don't stop every 5 minutes and fly around the spot to mark their sympathy with the family. I watched and felt so incapable of entering into this. I asked Mrs. Robin what was the procedure for sympathetic humans to do who wanted to show their condolences as well. She said she would look it up.

After the game of jump

the moonbeams was over. Mrs. Swan resumed her class. She was trying to show them how they could calculate the distance between the fish and the ripple that they make on the top of the water. They were clearly not ready for advanced calculated geometrical fishing tactics. It was clear that this was a very slow class and that Mrs. Swan was going to have to go ever so slowly with them.

Mrs. Swan was holding her usual evening

Geometry class at the pond. "Class" she sighed "I noticed that a great many of you are attempting to enter the water with no ripples at all, this is not good." With that said she wiggled her tail ever so gracefully, as usual.
Her class, never knew how to take what she was saying. The cobs didn't know whether to correct her or just listen. They chose the latter, in the hopes that, if they didn't interrupt, she would finish quickly and they would get back to the business of free play; which was their major these days.
"The reason I just rippled, is because, as you can plainly see, the ripples that I make flow away from my body in a circular set of rhythms across the pond." The children sighed and set back in the water for a long oration from her, there was no chance that they were going to get to play moonbeam hop on the water tonight, Mrs. Swan was always long winded when it comes to geometry. She was trying to make sure that her young students had every advantage in acquiring the food that they needed to become healthy and strong. The cobs especially took every breath that she took and every pause in her words to cause a rucus. "Bobby! that is not nice!" she yelled, while flapping her wings. You did not want to make Mrs. Swan flap her wings, it meant a note home for sure because she had wanted to hit someone. "Bobby, no pecking at Daisy, do you hear me, absolutely no pecking at anyone other than yourself! Do I make myself clear, that you will be getting a note home and have other consequences, most certainly for pecking at Daisy like that? Look at her, she is crying and all because you were trying to get her attention. Oh my, children, All but Daisy and Bobby, take a break!"
Everyone wanted to kiss Bobby for doing that, it was the full moon and they always played jump the moonbeam as the moon came onto the pond at first shine. Mrs. Swan didn't remember that when she scheduled this extra Geometry class for her growing class...

I call them Angel Flutes...

They are really wasp nests or hornets nests, but Mrs Blackbird says that late at night, when no one is on that side of the building, the angels have a jam session on them and they sound like what we call wood winds but they are wax-winds. I had never seen them before. Stuck to the side of the pillars are these wax instrument-looking things with holes placed strategically, like a recorder or a flute.
One night I worked late and I heard them tuning their instruments for the jam-session. I couldn't wait around for the concert, but only the parent birds were allowed to stay up late for the party. The Blackbirds and the Robins and the Bluejays and even some other assortments of birds traveled, from as far away as the park on the other side of the big street to hear the Angel's jam.
Mrs. Bluejay told me that none of her tunes are original. All of the songbirds stay up late and listen to the concerts and borrow the angel's tunes and share them with us.
I am glad she told me that, because when I borrow parts of tunes in my musical attempts, I don't feel so bad.
One evening, I'll be brave enough to sit up and listen to the Angel-jam!

I walked around the bend,

past the columns that house the "angel flutes" and I saw a bird flitter off, seemingly in a huff. My curious mind, just assumed that Mr. and Mrs Robin had had a spat and that he was off again, in his attitudy way. As I got closer to Mrs. Robin, I was poised with another pittious plattitude about the difficulties of maintaining a relationship. It is none of my business, except that she is my friend and everything. With all that we've been through together, I think I should say something about the bickering that I have seen them engaged in daily during this egglaying and nest building seasons. I wanted to ask her, if this is a particularly difficult laying season or is it always like this with him.
She saw pity on my face and chimed right in, not allowing me to say a word. I would've invited you to tea today, but we never know when you are coming around the bend. Mr. Blackbird came for tea today and as you can see we chose the best picnicking spot for our oldest and dearest friend."
I was off-base completely, and there was Mr. Robin, behaving himself beautifully and helping with the clean-up from the beautiful teaparty with Mr. Blackbird...
silly me.

"I Hope that you are talking about me,"

said Mrs. Bluejay when she read what I was writing, over my shoulder. I don't explain myself to birds, I huffed. I get absolutely no privacy from you. That's what friendship is all about she cried. Is your knee better? I haven't seen you showing off your wing feathers to the goslings, I mean walkerlings lately...
Would you mind your business, I huffed again. I was not in the mood for her meddlings. Good friends can say that to one another and Mrs. Bluejay wasn't taken aback in the least; she just clicked her bird feet on the branch, shook her tail at me and flew off.
The cardinals thought we had had an argument and came by to offer their sympathies to me. We did not have an argument, I said. I am trying to sort out my thoughts about something. Would you leave me alone. Them, you don't have to tell twice. Off they flew.

In her eyes,

I saw love and expectation, not a hint of accusation. This meant that the adults in her life had proved themselves as trustworthy. In her eyes, I see presence and hope and reason. A reason to reach, a reason to hope. In her eyes I see growing and desire to grow. Little people do grow up, as it says in Puff, the Magic Dragon...
Can that look in her eyes; the youthful love in her eyes; the youthful life in her eyes, stay?
I think that adulthood is about finding that look and carrying or coddling it from topic to topic until the truth of what this person who we are responsible for finds their reason. Jealousy makes us want to orient them and help them know that life is not like that. I am not like that, not as consistent as you'd wish and not as right as you expect.
If I stumble right in front of them, that look is gone! GONE, for good! I certainly don't want that.
Why I do What I do.

Quite a while ago, now

Pop Blackbird was very put out with me. I had called his training sessions a game. He let me know, in no uncertain terms that there is no funny business at all when they run their drills and training sessions.
It looked like a game of "buck-buck" to me. The blackbirds have quite a regimen and he showed me level 1, on the ground worm siting formation. Level 2 was hovering, insect retrieval, in formation still and tree to tree.
If one of his band goes out of place, he hollers and I would not want to be the bird that he has to discipline for insubordination or being out of place in the drills.
He hollered at me for calling his training sessions a game and I am certainly not one of his troop, just a friend...now.

Recently,

Mrs. Bluejay has serenaded me every morning. She sits posing and singing atop my neighbor's roof. She loves it when I show off in front of the children and my husband. Everyday she says, "Don't forget to show them your wing feathers or they never will get the gumption to show you theirs." I believe her, I have never seen her towing one baby with her.

The Robin baby shower...

was a sight to behold.
It was just the right temperature, neither too hot or too cold outside, on that day in April when I accidentally crashed the robin baby shower, outside my job.
A gracious hostess, Mrs Robin offered me some worm pudding and I declined, as politely as I know how with a friend of her high status and gracious acquaintance. She was juggling all of the family and stubborn Mr. Robin was doing his darndest to mess up the party. He seemed upset that he hadn't her undivided attention.
When I got there, He was deep in a temper tantrum and she was not consoling him as she usually does, she was rebuffing him. She said it is not everyday that my family comes into town to visit and this may be the only time these little ones get to see the entire family together, now you stay or go out, if you like, but I am going to host the family.
He flew away in a huff and Mrs. Robin's mother gave her such a cute peck on the beak after that performance that I had wished that I had had a camera to catch it. It seems Mrs. Robin has no problem being bossy, when she wants to and is learning to be kind and submissive to Mr. Robin, because she loves him and he is a high-maintenance relationship. She does it beautifully. I was so in awe of how she juggled all of those elements that I was almost late from my break...again.

Pop Bunny...

brought all of his little ones out to meet us, on our first day at camp. That was when we learned that Ma bunny puts breakfast on the table precisely at 6:15. The children are not allowed to miss breakfast, even in summertime. Pop is kind of pudgy, so he does occasionally miss breakfast to comeout and watch us hit the ball.
Enoch, inadvertantly hit the ball out to the bunnies in the stands and they all grabbed it and took it back to Ma, so she could see what they were doing out there with us.
Sometimes she gets on them for socializing with humans, unless they can show her some good cause.
On the second day they asked Enoch to sign the ball for their mother, and he did happily. Now he's famous in the bunny world as an amazing tennis player. They don't know you are supposed to hit it in the court. They think that we are missing it by not hitting it at them.
We had a good time.
I wasn't able to get a picture of the bunny children with the ball, just Pop, because he is much slower than they are. It was hilarious to see that bunch of little bunnies running up to Enoch all carrying one tennis ball...