Watching

By GrahamLewis · Feb 7, 2020 ·
  1. Walking to the bird feeder this morning, I sensed I was being watched. I turned around and saw my rabbit friend with the bad back leg staring at me. He’s set up residence under our porch, had heard me clunking to the screen door, and had followed me toward the feeder, with great interest in the birdseed I was putting in the feeders and spreading on the ground. As I walked back toward the porch, he turned around and kept pace in front of me on the narrow path through the snow, stopping and looking, keeping careful watch, finally darting under the porch, to emerge soon as I had gone inside. We have a relationship, but it’s tempered by his DNA, an overly large (and necessary) fear mechanism that keeps him constantly ready to flee; I doubt he will ever fully trust me. I don’t take it personally.


    He wasn’t the only watcher. Chickadees had sounded in the cherry tree above one feeder, and from what I understand they don’t just make random sounds, they communicate about possible danger. I’m pretty sure their message was, “he’s okay, he won’t be staying long, and he’s bringing food.” Because at the same time rabbit re-emerged, they flitted to the feeders. Soon the local pair of cardinals swooped down from the tops of far trees -- they’d been watching, too, waiting to be sure the chicadees had correctly assessed the situation.


    Before long the first squirrel began bounding across the crusted snow. They’d been watching me, too, and with good reason. They know I don’t approve of them raiding the feeders and hogging the seed, and they know I’m likely to hurl epithets, maybe even snowballs, in their direction. So they monitor my every move.


    As I stand at the window, watching the show, my attention is drawn to one of the several small holes in the snowbank under the nearest feeder. At first glance the holes seem nothing more than random patterns from the slow and intermittent snowmelt, but they are more deliberate. As I watch, a bit of black emerges and sinks back, as though a shadow had tried to escape and thought better of it. Soon the shadow emerges again, longer this time. Before long it’s out and stretched out against the white snow. A vole, a timid mouse-like creature (sometimes in fact called a “field mouse”). It’s out, then dashes back inside. However watchful the others are, these guys are far more cautious. As they should be, small and essentially helpless against predators, they rely solely on caution, which is kind of hard to find when you are black against white. Hence the quick darts to spilled birdseed, to stash it in the snow tunnels, then come back for more, to finally settle down inside the cold dark tunnels to eat. Safe inside until the spring snowmelt. But that’s another story.


    My lovebird flits to my shoulder, and he watches, too, especially the birds that drift or dart down. He sometimes yells at them and, knowing his personality, he’d try to take them on should I let him out there. But of course I won’t. He has no idea what cold means, and no interest in seed those birds eat with such enthusiasm. He might not know it, but he’s far better off inside with me, as one of the inside watchers.


    We settle at the kitchen table, the bird on my shoulder as I type this, knowing the show outside goes on whether we watch or not, but grateful to have seen at least one act.
    love to read, Moon, Wreybies and 2 others like this.

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