August 2, 1991

Our neighbors were particularly rowdy Saturday evening. Blame it on the weather; a cool breeze pushed the soft clouds across the blue sky, making it feel more like October than late July. It was a perfect evening to be raucous.
Sitting on the back steps watching the day end, observing a spider perform a death-defying bungee trick, leaping from the corner of the house with no more than a thin strand of web to prevent him or her from crashing into the pebbles far below, the calm evening was shattered when our blue jay neighbors started bickering.
At the top of the maple tree the father blue jay said something the mother didn’t care to hear. She let him know in no uncertain terms, her complaints beginning low and guttural and ending with screams. Chastened, he responded with screams of his own. Back and forth they yelled, until one of their offspring, now old enough to be off on his own (perhaps the source of the squabble) few near his mother and begged for an after-dinner snack.
Dutifully, the mother flew off in search of something edible, leaving the father to squawk beneath his bird breath.
Focus shifts to the bare branches atop an elm tree where two Mississippi kites call for “Ce-cile, Ce-cile.” A pack of starlings, having dropped graffiti on the sidewalk, swarm around the majestic kites, like a ghetto gang around uptown celebrities. The kites, still whistling for “Ce-cile,” soar easily above the tree until the starling gang loses interest in harassment and flies off in search of other delinquencies.
Our neighborhood kites are so gracious in flight and manner that we wonder if they are behavioral mutants. Kindred of our kites have been known to dive bomb small children innocently playing and little old ladies peacefully tending their gardens. We have long hoped a kite would attack us as we pushed the lawnmower around the yard, giving us justification for ceasing such mindless activity. But our neighborhood kites simply soar and whistle for “Ce-cile,” as passive as butterflies.
As the kites lift skyward they avoid the chattering chimney swifts which dart and dash across the sky, gulping winged insects. Looking like cigar stubs with sings, the swifts regularly race into the chimney to feed their young, who wait open-mouthed in mud nests. High-pitched twittering billows from the chimney as the young greet their parents.
A red-headed woodpecker swoops into the honey locust tree and begins hammering on a dead limb. Woodpecker skulls have thick walls and woodpecker brains have a tough outer membrane, preventing addlepation when the feathered jackhammers knock their way through bark and wood in search of grubs. But one wonders about the genetic transfer of intelligence from generation to generation.
On the lawn, a robin takes advantage of the recent rain, hopping from worm to worm, hesitating between gulps to cock his head and search for cats. When a treeful of sparrows holding a cacophonous convention down the alley suddenly hushes, the robin senses a predator. Sure enough, our cat, whose reputation as a blood-thirsty marauder must be well-known to the feathered community, sneaks around the corner of the garage with both eyes on the robin. Forewarned by the silenced sparrows, the robin pulls a final worm from the soft soil as he flits to the safety of the pecan tree.
The father blue jay, still agitated by his matrimonial spat, sees the cat and vents his spleen on the feline, squawking as if the cat were his wife. The cat nonchalantly strides to the porch, stretches and yawns, then lays down with closed eyes.
Atop the elm tree, two western kingbirds are now heckling the kites, periodically flying at the larger birds as if they mean business. .The kites, like the cat, confidently ignore the insults.
A pare of wrens, filled with the joy of the evening, sing to each other as they hurry to and form their tiny house.
As dusk darkens, the wrens stay home, the kites perch in peace, and the kingbirds and starling are finally still. The night is left to the cicadas and crickets.
With the sun just a faint grey smudge on the western sky, we stretch and yawn and go into our home to lay down with closed eyes. ~T.Stucky