The birds of my friendship are sized from very small to medium, with several long-legged ones that attract my attention; and then there is one large bird that is different—it is a messenger. Sometimes I question it, and sometimes it answers. Other times it is a sign of a good happening to come. Several months ago as I sat at my computer desk, I kept hearing a different, yet bird-like sound but maintained my attention on my writing. When it had been repeated an unusual number of times, I finally turned toward my open window. A large, black bird standing on top of my brick wall directly faced me. A crow? But by its slight shift, I recognized the coppery wings. “Do you have a message,” I asked. Then it proceeded to repeat this sound and listening I understood in words. When it had finished, it turned, and in the slight sway of its gait, walked stately back along the wall before hopping into the leafy maze of a ficus. I sat still, considering.
Sparrows were my first new home visitors six years ago. After days of their appearing, perching on my porch iron grill, sometimes looking into the kitchen, I recognized that they were the welcoming committee. While they are a common bird, I grew to look forward to their regularity and my heart opened to their ordinary appearance.
I bought a structurally simple and beautiful standing stone bird bath at a nursery and placed it in front of my kitchen window. At this time the nearby neem had barely sufficient leaf clusters for the birds to feel protected. But its annual leafing had a noticeable effect and more birds kept discovering my home, its other maturing trees, and the electrical wires above as open perches.
When the bath neem reached fuller coverage, I observed how certain species of birds would wait in numbers for the bath to be free. I was learning about the instinctual patterns of my bird community. I looked up names and increasingly could identify more, except for one flock of very small birds that even by searching through three bird books ended up with my own name for them—sweet singers—as with soft chirps they flutteringly changed places on the bath’s rim.
Those smart birds, the crows, eventually came but in time overstepped their welcome, and I had no choice but to give the bath away, a move that ended the return of some birds. But in relief I learned that my home still held importance to many birds. They came when the neems fruited; certain birds became regulars because insects populated a patch of intentionally left wild grasses surrounding the neem; and they came for reasons only they knew—but were pleasing to me.
My realization is, “A friend is someone with whom you have a mutual affection, so why not let one’s affection for birds be wholly felt, as if it is returned.”