I should have known the bird feeder was a mistake. How could I be so heartless as to think that? How indeed.
A huge rhododendron bush grows across the street from my house. It’s actually a multistory apartment complex for sparrows, containing at least twelve nests. In the spring the little feathered rodents wake up the entire neighborhood with their infernal squabbling.
One cold autumn day in a fit of compassion, I decided to attach a bird feeder to the railing of my front porch. My first mistake. But who wants to watch sparrows shiver and starve to death in the snow?
I fed the little blighters all winter long. Most flew south for the winter. Some decided to stay. “Myrtle, if that dumb, fat, human is going to feed us, why should fly all the way to Albuquerque? Let your mother come up here to visit.”
As the years flew by, the rhododendron grew larger and more feather-bed flop-houses were added. If the feeder ran empty, the obnoxious little twits lined my railing and glared at my door. “Feed us, you dumb, fat, human or we’ll poop on your railing.”
Finally, I grew tired of spending the grocery money to feed a growing flock of ungrateful little twerps.
“The Good Book says, He feeds the sparrows,” I told them. “I’m tired of doing His job for you. Get off your lazy, feather-padded butts, and go to work, like I have to.”
I had just made mistake number two.
When I came home that night, my railing was groaning under the weight of little feathered parasites. Right in the middle stood two huge, black, ravens. As I walked across to the front door, they followed me, staring, with beady little black eyes. Only their heads moved.
Hit birds.
I just hope they don’t find out I’ve got a back door.