With
spring rustling in the air, new visitors have been showing up daily to the bird
feeder proving to be a distraction for the woman inside pecking away at the
computer. And let me tell you, she has looked for any reason to be distracted.
I’m
coming to the end of another screenplay. For several reasons I’m not at liberty
to share just now, I wrote this story outside my usual genre. It's a mystery. I now
possess new admiration for all mystery writers, because I’ve had a brain cramp
for going on three months. There’ve been several times I’ve been tempted to hit
the delete button on the whole file. With all the twists and turns, clues and
red herrings, I’ve been afraid I was going to lead my protagonist right over a
literary cliff. Thankfully, here near the end, she has lived to see another
day, but barely.
When
my new birds showed up, I considered it my ornithological duty to find out who
they were. So what if it took a few hours with my nose in a field guide.
I
recognized a goldfinch, and identified a pine warbler from the Cornell site.
However,
there remained one bird I couldn’t seem to place. Shades of warblers in the
fall. I even brought my son who’s studying to be a wildlife biologist into the
search.
“We’re
studying raptors, not songbirds right now,” he said when I showed him a picture
my mystery bird.
No
help.
While
taking a break from the screenplay, I found myself ensnared in an entirely
different kind of mystery. More brain camp as I poured over page after page of
the field guide comparing females and males, spring plumage against winter
plumage.
And
then the unthinkable happened.
I
came home to find one of my unidentified birds struck down in the prime of life dead
on my welcome mat--a gift from the formerly feral Mama Kitty.
It
took me most of an afternoon to get over.
“Why
do cats do that?” I complained to my son while the now docile Mama Kitty napped
on the sofa in my office.
He
stroked her. “She likes you, so she’s
bringing you meat offerings. On, the brighter side, you can look more closely
at the bird now to find out what it is.”
He’s
spent a good portion of this last year in his professional program to be a
wildlife biologist looking at animal skin and scat.
Oh,
deliver me. I’ve known artists who keep dead animals in their freezers so
they’re always accessible for reference. Not happening here.
Thankfully,
another of the birds showed up at the feeder. I think it’s a pine siskin. I’m
not an expert, but that’s what I’m going with.
Back
to the mystery story now, to untangle a few word snarls. But it’s almost spring,
and I don’t want to miss anything great in the backyard, so I’m staying open
for more distractions.
Here's hoping it's not a mystery to Mama Kitty that I can get my own meat.
“…He
breathes on winter—suddenly it’s spring” (Psalm 147:18 The Message).