Chirping

 My office was located on John Street in Manhattan about two blocks from the South Street Seaport area. Occasionally when the weather was nice, I would have something to eat in the Seaport area and then sit on a bench and smoke a cigar. One day while sitting on the bench I heard a loud and persistent chirping of a bird. I looked towards the end of the street and noted two sparrows and a third slightly smaller bird. It was the smaller bird that was chirping. It seemed to be fluffing its feathers and constantly moving around the sparrows. Having watched a number of nature programs on PBS, I surmised the smaller bird was seeking sex and doing a ritual mating dance. Occasionally the two larger birds flew off to a perch on one of the surrounding buildings and the smaller one remained on the ground. As soon as one of the larger birds returned, the smaller bird resumed its chirping and dancing. After a short while, the larger sparrow flew to a planter and poked around its earth. It extracted a piece of bread which it dropped to the ground and began pecking at it. In short shrift the smaller bird followed and alighted upon the ground next to the bread, but did not feed upon it. Instead, it began chirping, fluffing its feathers and prancing about.

The larger sparrow with its beak, picked up a small drop of bread and proceeded to drop it into the smaller bird's open mouth.

The mystery was solved. The smaller bird was not seeking sex. It was simply asking ‘’ Hey Mom what’s for dinner ?"

Ben Haber

January 3, 2021