Birdy moment

In this house of wonderful tall windows, it can feel like living inside a snowglobe, only with cats and dust in place of the white flecks, and instead of strange eyes looking in, we householders do the looking, my eyes, the cats eyes, spying outward.

Folding laundry, I notice the cats at the window, two furry statues, tails flicking, intense and excited. When I pause with a ball of socks in my hand to see what they see, ah, yes, fluttering wings and flung water.

At the edges of the pond, all along our shallow recirculating stream, and beneath the two-foot high waterfall, a mixed flock of Dark-eyed juncos and Chestnut-backed chickadees are bathing, drinking, landing and taking off, the surrounding redwood limbs and huckleberry bushes, dancing, as the little flyers perch, shaking themselves dry.

Crouching down beside the cats, we watch the show—downy heads dipping into shallow pools, feathers flicking pearls of water, new arrivals touching beaks to greet each other or lining up on mossy rocks before diving in.

We’ve been invited to a bird party!

Suddenly one much smaller bird—coppery with a patch of crimson—arcs up into the bare, weeping cherry tree.

Who are you?

As that question passes through my mind, I already know. Rufous hummingbird. The earliest I think I’ve ever seen one come through. A gorgeous male, his head scanning side to side, flashing his irridescent gorget.

Suddenly he flies to the window, hovering inches from the cats’ faces, only a bit of glass between us, watching us, as if we could be dazzling, too.