What a Bird

There was a bird outside my window this morning. It was a bit before 6am, my alarm still 20 minutes from waking the dogs, when the persistent noise pierced the veil of sleep.

Tweedertweedertweeder twit! Twit twit!

I decided I didn't care who some bird was calling names at that ungodly hour, and tried to go back to sleep. Nothing doing. So I eased out of bed, careful not to awaken the ferocious sentinels who sleep with me, and went to the door. As stealthily as I could, I opened it. I peeked back at the bed - both dogs continued to snore, paws akimbo, heads lolled.

Sitting on my barbecue grill was a short, fat little guy with a bright yellow chest. He favored me with a condescending glance, then flew to the top of my greenhouse.

Tweedertweeder twit! Twit!

I looked around. There was no snake, no obvious danger, no apparent reason for the racket.

"Hush up! It's too early for all that!" I tried to keep my voice low enough not to wake the hounds, but loud enough to make my point. "Go on, now, go do that somewhere else if you can't be quiet!"

He fluttered away indignantly. I closed the door, slid back into bed, and let myself sink into the softness. I settled my head comfortably against the pillow, snuggled my back against the junior guard beast, and curled my legs around the senior one. I had just begun to reclaim my place in the dream I'd been enjoying...

Tweedertweeder tweedertweeder twit twit tweeder!!

The sleep I'd been wooing fled. My eyes popped open. I began to think uncharitable thoughts about birds in general, and this little loudmouth in particular. This time, the dogs heard it, too, and started stirring. Unwillingly, I got up, put a leash on Diana, and sternly instructed Tudor to go directly to the pen when the door opened. Out we tumbled, subtlety abandoned.

The bird was not as bothered by our ruckus as I was by his. I glared at the little stinker, who was perched atop the dog pen tweeder-twitting his little heart out. I expected Tudor to spring into action and rid me of the pesky noise, but he opted for a more casual approach and strolled into the pen, ignoring the bird entirely. My disgruntlement threatened to flounce its way directly into outright annoyance when Diana took her cue from her papa and also pretended there was no bird.

I closed the gate of the pen with a bang, which didn't disturb the little tweeter in the slightest. I might have actually growled at him. He blithely went on tweeder-twitting.

I finally thought to look where he was looking. Then looked back at him. His little head was thrown back, chest puffed out - I mean, this little bird was really giving it his all.

He was watching the sun rise. Joyously, riotously, raucously celebrating the event. He didn't care one bit what I or anyone else thought of his song.

I felt myself grin in spite of my grumpiness. And I hope I didn't disturb my neighbors with my impromptu rendition of "Here Comes the Sun."