notes from the kelp

…click to listen:

…about the music

Music for bird brains?

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Well, this gives new meaning to the name, “house sparrow.”

I’ve had to rescue an over-eager bird who ended up inside my bird feeder a while back, but that’s a piece of cake compared with coaxing one off of a 29 foot-high window sill and out the door.
Any door.
Pleeeeeaaase??

It happened like this, the little avian drama moment du jour:

1. I lovingly sprinkled birdseed on the deck railing (it can get really windy on this part of the island, so I’ve given up using hanging feeders that turn into seed torpedoes).
2. I opened my door wide to let the warm sea air in while I worked. Or, procrastinated from working. It matters not which.
3. Cute little birdies descended toward the railing for the free buffet. Awwww.
4. After a little while, so did an eagle.

Lunch?

5. All the cute little, potential birdie crudités instantly, chaotically scattered.
6. One went the wrong way.

“Uh, bake me a cake with a nail file in it, okay guys?…”

And so, it became a waiting game. Lacking any 30-foot long objects that just happen to be lying around, I briefly considered gently lobbing rolled-up socks at the poor fella with my good pitching arm. Of course, I’m a musician nerd and I don’t have a good pitching arm, but why should that stop me? Anyhow, before I could get upstairs to my lingerie closet (let’s see, would he prefer lace, or just a simple tube sock?), the birdie took off on a self-guided tour of my interior decorating. Every door and window that I could swing wide for his easy escape from prison had been opened, and yet this guy managed to wildly flap around in circles while I just prayed he didn’t leave droppings on my gear. There’s nothing in my insurance policy that covers repairs due to bird poop. Although if anyone were to comment that the piece I’m working on sounds like crap, I’d be able to smile broadly and proclaim, “Why, as a matter of fact, yes it does. Thank you!”.

His aerial tour went on for quite some time. We were both getting dizzy.
Then suddenly, a terrible thing happened: after making yet another full-speed lap inside the house, he bonked himself right into a window. Yikes.
I watched as he plummeted in slow motion, hoping that he was just stunned.
Which thankfully, he was.
Which thankfully, gave me a momentary advantage.
With his tiny feet clinging to a sofa pillow, I carefully maneuvered him toward an open door.
He fluttered, paused, fluttered some more, and then whoosh! Out the door he went, to settle on a rock two feet away. I brought him seed and a little water while he collected himself (my mothering instinct kicks in at times like this, and only at times like this), lectured him on the use of turn signals (see? I shoulda been a mother), advised him to get his Global Positioning Sparrow unit fixed (okay, if not a mother, then maybe a mechanic), and went back to work (or procrastinating, whatever I was doing before all this activity).

A few minutes later he was gone. My jailbird flew the coop, and I’m hoping his recidivism rate is very, very low.
Because my ceiling is very, very high!