During these crazy pandemic times, you look at the planet we live on in a totally different way. With nothing to do and lots of free time, I spent a lot of my time in our fenced-in courtyard reading or just enjoying the feeling of the Vitamin D warming me up. Well I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I couldn’t but help notice the beautiful bird sounds from the nearby palm and ficus trees. Their flights from tree to tree was just a graceful and beautiful. I know how I may sound, and believe me, I was thinking the same, I was in a place that I was unfamiliar with… a time when I didn’t have to worry about… well, damn I really don’t have to worry about anything! When was the last time that I ever had to not worry about anything? Wow. It is a time to step back and smell the roses, or feed the birds and squirrels! I swear I’m losing’ it…

One day, it was a windy one and the trees were rockin’ back and forth, it was wind that we haven’t seen in some time, and after the wind died down, I noticed a baby bird in our courtyard, a small black bird that probably got blown out of his nest. I’m throwin’ it bread and peanuts, and wondering if I should pick it up and relocate it. But then I thought about the hawks and predators that it would be subject to… I certainly don’t want to carry that guilt around. But it is squawking up a storm! Before long, its mom and dad, (who were later named Tom and Jerry), came nearby looking for him. They flew on our fence and looked down on their little one wondering how to get him out. Well to this day, I don’t know how that little bird escaped the inside of our courtyard. My mind was wondering and I thought of the possibilities:

1. Tom or Jerry came down off the fence and put the little one on his back and flew him out.
2. Tom and Jerry contracted with a squirrel in the neighborhood and the squirrel, (who was named Rocky), “muled” him out.
3. Or the little bird climbed the tree and hopped the fence.

Either way, one day the little bird was gone. After a day or two, they came back to visit! And brought their friends! We would open our front door and they would fly onto the fence. When we weren’t outside they would squawk a bit letting us know that they were there.

They popped in on us, perched on the fence, waited for me to drop a few nuts and they either ate “in”, or took it to go. They brought their young’uns and fed them too! Totally crazy.. I felt like the old guy on the park bench feeding the pigeons! What the birds didn’t eat, Rocky did.

Eventually I went back to work, (although it was short-lived), the Grackle’s stopped coming by and really haven’t seen them since. It could be that they migrated elsewhere for the summer months, but before long another bird showed up, pecking at our Papaya tree. A Red Bellied Woodpecker! How cool is that? And yes of course, its Woody!

I really need to get back to work.