Writer's Grove

For the birds

You know how every so often a series of coincidences will start to freak you out a little bit? Like, “Why is everyone talking about Scooby Snacks all of a sudden?” or “What is up with all these references to the use of Splenda in everyday kitchen magic?” One such series happened to me yesterday.

Apparently, the universe wants me to pay more attention to birds. So I’m giving them a blog post.

First, one of my Twitter peeps, A.B., turned me on to this site called Myths Retold where this dude takes old stories from mythology and retells them in crude English vernacular. They’re pretty funny, but fair warning, the language can get pretty foul. I read this one, which tells the story of how Tereus, Procne, and Philomela got turned into birds.

Then I drove up with the family to see my mom in Payson and we were playing “Which radio station is playing the least crappy music right now?” and came across three bird-related songs in a row. “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado, followed by “Broken Wings” by Mister Mister (I KNOW!) and then “Down in a Hole” by Alice in Chains. If you’re wondering how that last song relates to birds, there’s a lyric in there that goes like this: “I’d like to fly/but my wings have been so denied.” SO denied, dude. I commented on this odd string of songs to my wife and she said, “Oh, yeah?” and I thought that was going to be the end of it—but it was only the beginning.

We drive up to my mom’s house and the first thing she says is, “I’m so glad you’re here! I need help refilling the bird feeders.” And she wasn’t kidding at ALL, because the birds were lurking in the trees and staring at us with tiny black Hitchcock eyes, waiting for us to get their grub on. She has four different bird feeders and different mixes of seed; one feeder just has this nasty stuff called suet inside, and it’s supposed to attract titmice (horrifying name there) and nuthatches. The nuthatches are kinda neat. They look like this:

The birds are going crazy in the trees while we’re filling up the feeders. They’re fighting over branches to perch on and chirping angrily at each other.
“No, I’M gonna eat first!”
“No way! You fell out of the nest!”
“Oh yeah? Your mom was a dodo!”
“So? Your mom was a titmouse!”

The deck in Payson is surrounded by shaggy-bark juniper and cedar trees. There are a couple of regular seed feeders, one that’s full of black flax seeds, a suet feeder, and a hummingbird feeder. All of’ ’em get love.

Once we were finished filling the feeders, I set up my computer on the deck there and enjoyed a beautiful day of writing while the birds swooped in for seed.

I saw a rufous sided towhee. They look like this and they’re darn pretty. I also saw a white crowned sparrow, which is a bit prettier than the common house sparrow I see all over the place. (And I love the picture at that link because the sparrow is nomming on a tasty bug of some kind.) There were black-headed grosbeaks and lesser goldfinches, and the hummingbird visitors were all broad-tailed hummingbirds, though I’ve seen other species there in the past.

I finished up that female POV short story and sent it off to my editor. We’ll see if it passes muster.

Today marks exactly one month until I’m officially published! Can you hear my squee? :)