FEATHERED FRIENDS! PART I
by Dan Burton, Publisher of The New Harmony GazetteÂ
They call them our Feathered Friends, those sleek little, fluffy flyers we see perched on our window sills, bird feeders and park benches. Happily chirping and frolicking through the sky. But the story I’m about to tell you puts that relationship and that phrase, our Feathered Friends, in a whole different light!
It was a Tuesday morning, the way I recall it, and the sun had finally broken through the overcast and rain of the past few days. Ol’ Sol was playing havoc with the clouds which had encased it’s brilliance most of the prior week. Yep! The day broke bright and cheery that Tuesday morning.
In celebration of Spring’s triumph over Winter, I decided to leave the back door to the Gazette office, at 505 Main Street, open to Mother Nature’s fresh breezes.
I went upstairs to my desk and began the task of writing the monthly political sermon. Little did I know, but Mother Nature had an adventure and a lesson in store for me. My mind was heavily focused on what to put on that blank piece of steno paper that was staring up at me from the note-pad. When “What was that?†I exclaimed to myself. “Birds?†That chirping sounded mighty distinct! “Was I suddenly getting my hearing back?†I wondered. “Will miracles never cease?†I thought. That music sounded to close to be coming from outside my window pane. Then I heard a flutter of wings rushing behind me in the air. At that point, I decided I’d better put down the pen and see what was afoot…er… or a-wing, in this case. What was going on inside my castle?
At first when I saw them cavorting under the twenty-foot ceilings. I thought two Bluebirds had inadvertently found their way into my domain. “How cute!†I observed. Two little one-ounce- wonders, having a time, dancing on the hanging lampshades and landing gently on the motionless ceiling fans. Whoosh! They’d chase each other up to the mezzanine, land on the sill of the small west-facing window, and were probably wondering where the heck they had ended up in the rapid aerial journey of their mating frenzy.
Now I was able to get a closer look at them, Birdie Beau and Birdie Belle. They were not Bluebirds as I had first thought, but Finches. I could tell now by their off-purple or reddish coloring. They didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me at all, but they were doing a good job of eliminating any hope of my concentrating on writing an article for the New-Harmony Gazette on that particular day.
“Well!†I said to myself. “This has got to end or I won’t get any work done and will miss my deadline!†So I decided to open the large, fifteen foot high, front door to the building and then
they’d soon be on their way. After all, that’s what they were desiring, to get on with their skyward romance and leave this dank old building behind. But no! They kept flying against the north and east windows to no avail. Sometimes fluttering up and down the panes and sometimes pecking at them as they moved up and down. The male, the Beau, was especially aggressive. He would fly with force into these encasing walls of glass. “Go through the door!†I yelled. Fly toward the bright light and the morning breeze!†Suddenly Beau decided that he’d challenge the glass wall. END PART I
