The dining room window in the house where I grew up was five and a half feet square and faced the ocean. Our dining table was a semi-circle that hugged the wall just below it. A huge cedar branch looped down in front of it from which we suspended a bird feeder that saw a lot of action.
We didn't have cable so it provided a lot of entertainment. Frequent diners had names. I'd get up late at night with a flashlight so that I could watch Harvey the nocturnal flying squirrel because he was the coolest one.
One of the first things I noticed when I moved out here was the lack of birds. I mean, there were probably birds around but I didn't see nearly as many. It didn't really help that the previous owners had covered the front garden with a huge slab of concrete and the back yard was a sea of oil and car parts. They had had an outdoor-only cat that they didn't feed called Fuzzers. Not to mention, the neighbour next door at the time used impressive amounts of RoundUp and Killex.
These things do not happy bird territory make.
You can probably imagine that I'm pretty happy that there are birds living in the back yard now. Manic would be a better way to describe my glee. It's almost ridiculous how much it amuses me that they're there. My joy however, has been tempered by the knowledge that the barrier I built on the fence beside the birdhouse has been knocked down by cats that want to harass them.
I've got my eye on you, Flinty.
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