Birds

 I love domestic animals. I love wild life too. Birds are especially wonderful; I can’t have birds in my home because I have two cats and they are natural hunters. I feel sorry for the spiders they have eaten.  

My cats are males and aged 3 and 4 and they are very energetic. About three years ago I decided to start feeding the sparrows, starlings and any other birds that happen to pass by like crows and seagulls and pigeons. I had to figure out how to feed the birds because I live on the third floor of my building. My windows do face the street so I had an advantage. 

 At about 7 am every morning, no matter the weather, many birds congregate on the overhead wires and peer into my window waiting to be fed. Sometimes they tweet very loud to get my attention. I feed the birds cut up pieces of white bread.  

My cats Juniper and Bijou also know when it is time to feed the birds, as I throw bread onto the sidewalk below and onto the windowsill, they position themselves near the window to stalk and possibly catch a bird that flies onto the windowsill for a bite to eat.  

Of course, they can’t catch a bird because there are two screens in the window but that does not stop either one of my cats from crashing into the screens as a bird or two alight to grab some bread.  

Frequently I sit at the window and watch the birds come and go on the overhead wires, watching them dive bomb to the sidewalk to retrieve bread is very entertaining. Occasionally a wayward pigeon shows up to bully the sparrows. Sometimes starlings fight off crows for the tasty morsels. Every once in a while, a seagull flies by for an aerial view. Yet they don’t stay long because bread is not enough to fill those scavengers’ stomachs.   

In a very short time, the majority of the bread is gone and so are most of the birds. For the next few hours my two kitty’s attention is glued to the windows waiting for the occasional bird landing in the windowsill. 

Birds that live outside are so hardy, fat in the winter and slim in the summer. They follow Mother Nature’s seasons, eat from the blackberry tree around the corner and remind me of just how wonderful and outstandingly lucky I and my cats are to glimpse just a small part of wild life in this great big city.  

Georgia P.

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