The Birds Applauded

   

First I  have to say,  I wish I could take credit for coming up with the title of this blog.   After all, it is MY birds I'm going to be paying homage to,   and since I'm doing the typing....I could easily just lead everyone on.  I have to confess, my  friend Diann came up with it....in passing.....she worked it into the conversation.  Which can only tell you the conversations I have with friends and/or family aren't necessarily normal bits of verbal exchanges.  How do you work facts like birds applauding  into anything, verbal or otherwise?  Kinda like this:

My personal household buddy and I have a few zillion flocks of birds we feed on a regular basis.   Please allow me to state we have only named two of them, so we aren't nearly as deranged as our daughters would lead people to think we are.   These birds have become somewhat lazy we think, and depend on us to provide them with food so they don't have to do  the aviary thing of foraging and carrying their groceries.  They like the luxury of hanging out on or in the bird feeders we have thoughtfully provided them with, filled with the finest of bird foods,   imported all the way to  our backyard from..... some  bird food carrying store.  It's the caviar  of grains,  the lobster of sunflower seeds.  OK, it's the cheapest we can buy in bulk.  But, we  can tell they enjoy it as though they were eating the most gourmand worms nestled on gold plated dishes. Whoa!  Starting to scare myself,   I'll stop.

So, having cold weather in our part of the country for weeks on end this winter,  we have neglected to keep our feathery friends supplied with seed.   By "we" I mean Bob.  Our feeders all requited a ladder in  order to reach them.  I personally do not do ladders, but that's another story.

Most of the time they'll  light  on  the feeders, take in  the fact they're empty.....look toward  the window,  give us a rude wing gesture and fly away.   However, apparently the recent spring blizzard caused them feel  to feel a bit panicky because they stirred up quite a racket on all the feeders hanging near our kitchen window.   As we watched, they had the equivalent of a street fight going on.  They shoved each other off pegs of some of the feeders and threw snowballs at each other on the larger ones.  They dive bombed  new arrivals,  had midair collisions as they jockied for position and scratched and clawed to find a stray seed.  It was pathetic!  In all the confusion and fuss some would occasionally stop and peer at us through the window 

with tears in their eyes.   A few pounded their little wings against their heaving chests in frustration,  their heads drooping from the weight of their despair. Been reading a lot of books....can you tell?Anyhooooo.....Mr. Softy couldn't take it anymore, so he dressed to do battle with the elements, and hastened out the door, wrapped head to toe in his warmest armor to skirmish with the 80 mph wind driving the snow sideways.   He fought the door of the shed to retrieve his trusty ladder, grabbed the heavy pail of bird food and filled those feeders to the brim.  I stood at the window encouraging him with shouts of "bravo" (and the occasional,  "you are stupid, stupid, stupid for doing that!") and tossing confetti in the air.  Well, it wasn't confetti...it was rice because I happen to be preparing dinner at the time....what a mess!  I tend to get very enthusiastic about things.

He wasn't even back in the house before the birds returned,  texting to their friends that the feeders were full.   We were very happy for them and I was delighted with my hero that he took it up on himself to care enough to confront Mother Nature, who having a PMS day, just to make our little friends happy.  As Diann, my friend said;  the birds applauded him as well.