A bird in the house

Sunday mornings are for the sleepy Joes. Most people sleep in and maintain a blank mind until the effect of caffeine kicks in. Not us. Our internal clock system is so badly wired that we both are generally up before sunrise particularly on Sundays. My daughters are often surprised and ask us ‘why call so early?’ when we call them at 10 in the morning, so there is no genetic component to it for sure. May be their genes did an auto-correct.

It was close to 7 in the morning and Lakshmi was getting ready to go to work. She had opened the garage door in preparation and was generally milling about in the kitchen area attending to last minute details before she could declare the kitchen sterile and leave. She is unable to successfully transition from a messy kitchen to a sterile working place, I guess.  

I was checking the news on my iPad to find out if our supreme leader and North Korea’s supreme leader had settled on anything that we can remotely call a meaningful discussion. Good thing the nuclear devices need some special code and cannot be operated with an Alexa command.

Golfers were bellowing in the backyard shouting indecipherable words because they couldn’t make a four footer. They were also chest thumping each other when one sank a one footer.  From all indications, it looked as though a normal day was unfolding.

We both then heard a cacophony of bird chirping from outside the house and it also seemed to come from inside for some reason and I started wondering if the coffee I was drinking was spiked. We looked at each other and then walked around to see where the noise was coming from. The bird chirping began to crescendo and it was kind of unusual. Birds do come visit us but have strong reservations visiting us in numbers.

I opened the door leading to the garage to further investigate the noise source and saw a number of birds perched on the Douglas fir in our front yard vociferously demanding justice. I had no clue why it was my fault. I looked around and finally heard the cry of a baby bird from inside the garage. Must have come in when Lakshmi opened the garage door earlier. I moved around carefully checking things and opening cupboards to see if the bird was trapped. No success yet. I was standing at one end of the garage and pensively rocking my golf bag and suddenly saw a small bird jump out and fall flat on the ground. It lay there for a few seconds and then got up on its tiny feet and walked a foot before flying away. The bird had a colorful plumage and a conical beak so it was a Finch for sure. When I heard the baby bird cry the very first time I had a cinch it was a finch.

As if on cue, the entire bird community that came to visit us and was making noise like a bunch of teen agers, took wings and disappeared from the scene. It was all over in seconds. The birds were there to get our attention and would have even pressed our calling bell if we had slept in.