Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Romance: for the birds

My backyard is surrounded on three sides by stands of mature trees, which means, particularly at this time of year, that the neighborhood birds sometimes make such a racket that I have to close my office window so I can think straight. I did that yesterday, then rushed back to open the window a few minutes later because I'd heard the lovely, haunting call of a mourning dove.

That pleasure was short-lived. The mourning dove moved on, and I soon found myself yelling at a cardinal. He was perched in the viburnum bushes next to my patio, and his staccato chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp was driving me crazy. For the first time ever, I wished the neighbor's nasty bird-chasing cat would stop by. I stalked over to the window and realized that the noisy cardinal was trying to impress his lady love.

"Just shut up and kiss her!" I said. "I'm trying to work in here."

Yes, the crazy romance writer is now offering love-tips to birds.

A friend sent me this link to a short video of some birds of paradise. It's both fascinating and hilarious. One bird is shown cleaning up debris and even polishing his branch to set the scene for the seduction of his potential mate. She's having none of it.

It just started to rain here, so the birds have run off to wherever it is that they go when it rains. It's quiet now, so I'm going back to work on my novel.

2 comments:

Pilgrim said...

We've had mourning doves and a cardinal or two around here, too. It's wonderful to have spring again.

Brenda Coulter said...

If there's any bird call more beautiful than the mourning dove's, I don't know what it is.