Our doorbell rang and I could see the delivery person leaving a box on our steps. I waited a few pandemic seconds before I opened the door and called “Thank you!” and dragged the box into the house. Reaching for the can of Lysol that now had a permanent home on the floor next to the front door, I sprayed the box down.
My son Alex came into the living room as I was headed to the kitchen. “What got delivered?” he asked as he followed me into the kitchen.
“Don’t know, I haven’t opened it yet.” I began washing my hands in the kitchen sink. “The decontamination process isn’t finished.”
Drying my hands on a paper towel I grabbed the scissors from the drawer and went back to the box. Slicing it open I saw the ten pound bag of bird seed inside. “Yeah!” I pulled the bag out of the box.
“I don’t know if it’s because we’re hanging around the house more or because I changed brands of bird seed, but have you noticed all the different birds we’ve been seeing the past few weeks?”
“Remember the three Baltimore orioles that were on the hummingbird feeder the other day?” Alex asked as he followed me out the back door while I was carrying the bag of birdseed to our feeders.
“Oh, my gosh! Weren’t they beautiful!” I took the feeders down to fill them. “I have to say I’ve never seen one before. I had no idea that they’d like the sugar water for the hummingbirds.” I looked over at the hummingbird feeders. “Remind me that I need to make a fresh batch for them.” I’d finished filling the feeders and went back to the porch to sit in my rocking chair. Alex moved the pillows from the glider and sat down himself.
“So let’s see.” I said as put the bag of seeds down and began counting on my fingers. “In the past week the hummingbirds came back, we’ve seen an American goldfinch, we saw the three Baltimore orioles and we saw our first cowbird.”
“Oh yeah, the cowbird.” Alex pulled a stool over to put his feet on. “Isn’t that the one that lays it’s eggs in other bird’s nest so the other birds have to raise them?”
“Yup, pretty devious little guys aren’t they?” I leaned back in my rocker and looked at the bird feeder. “Let’s see who comes to visit us today.”
It wasn’t long before a beautiful bird I’d never seen before landed to get some seeds. “What the heck is that?” I asked pointing to the feeder.
Alex looked over. “I have no idea.”
I grabbed my phone, went to Google and typed in: Black head, red neck bird. Up popped a picture of what was at our feeder. “It’s called a rose-breasted grosbeak.” I held the phone out for Alex to see.
“Wow, I’ve never seem one before.”
“Nope. Me either.” I scrolled though the feed. “I wonder what they sound like?” I pressed the section that said sound. It immediately played a beautiful call. “Oh my gosh, that’s so pretty!” I looked over at the grosbeak at our feeder. He’d stopped eating and was looked over at us. “Oh geez, I think I just confused him.” I clicked off the sound.
In the distance we heard another rose-breasted grosbeak calling back. I looked over at Alex. “Did you hear that?”
Alex shook his head yes and pointed to a tree on the other side of our yard. Sitting up on one of the highest branches was another rose-breasted grosbeak calling again to the one at the feeder.
I looked at Alex and mouthed “Wow!” I looked back at the bird sitting in the tree as it once again sang out its beautiful call.
I had to smile as I looked back at Alex. “I think we just played matchmaker!”
Slice of Life 