Birds Gone Wild

Probably Not the Late Night Reveler

Who Polices Bird Parties?

Horses & Blue Heron

Beard Gone Wild

The ZZ Top of Birds

More Preening

Flap-Flapping

Ring-Necked Ducks

Probably Not the Late Night Partyers, Either

The Visit

A Duck, a Turtle and a Blue Heron Walk Into a Pond...

Evidently the birds party in the pines.

It's 1:30 a.m. and one of the GSPs decides she has to pee. The moon is nothing more than a clipped fingernail in a black sky. Stars and planets glow so bright I wish I had more interest in knowing their constellations, but the things unseen in the dark scare me.

Yes, I know, I'm a grown woman and I'm afraid of the dark.

I loathe these surprise potty breaks when every snap of a twig in the distance reminds me of a drooling grizzly or a rabid wolf. What I can't see, my over-zealous imagination invents. I'd be a terrific horror-writing novelist except I'd scare myself.

But I can hear the birds twittering. Worse, once back in the safety of my house, bedroom and bed, I realize that I can still hear the rockin' bird party. Who am I suppose to call to bust up the noise? Not the eagle; he'd be too intense, and probably eat a reveler or two.

"Hello, this is Bonner County Sheriff's Dispatch."

"Hi. This is Mrs. Mills, I live in one of those 12 houses in Elmira--the one with the blue roof by the old peat pond."

"Please state your emergency."

"No emergency, just wanted to report a disturbance."

"Are you in danger?"

"No, a noise disturbance. It's 1:30 a.m. and the birds are singing...loudly."

"Birds? Is that slang for teenagers?"

"No, birds as in birds...you know, beaks, feathers. I think it's the robins. They've gone wild."

"We can't do anything about birds..."

"But don't birds have curfews, too? Look it's 1:30 and they're disturbing my peace."

"Sorry, Ma'am."

Click...

My imagined conversation makes me realize how ridiculous it is that we call in noise disturbances to the law at all. Think of our ancestors and all the night noises they had to cope with--mating bull frogs, rowdy birds, hoot owls, howling wolves, yipping coyotes, wind in the willows...

The worse that ever happened in my 14 years living in the suburbs of Minneapolis was when the neighbor fired-up his lawn mower at 10 p.m. or teenagers laughed too loud playing midnight basketball in the cul de sac. But man, it set off some people when it did happen. Wonder how they'd deal with pine-partying birds outside the control of the law?

On that thought I doze off.

7:30 a.m. and I've missed the twilight. Maybe I should be disturbed by bird revelry more often. Coffee is percolating and dogs are sniffing for just the right spot in the dew-drenched grass that wets my ankles. The horses spot us from the back pasture and gallop to us.

I rub Snapper's velvety nose that is soft like a toddler's favorite stuffed bear.

That's when I spot Blue Heron.

Talk about gone wild, check out this bird's beard! I suspect he's come of age--mating age, that is. Blue Heron slips away more so than last year, and he never had this bird-manly beard. These wispy plumes indicate that Blue Heron is a full-grown adult.

And the beard could be on a Lady Heron, too. Talk about wild.

Then a group of ringed-neck ducks flap-flapping at each other, swim up to Blue Heron on his log. I think they're talking about last night's party.

They say it was the robins who are conspicuously absent this morning, not chasing early worms.