Pretty Bird!

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

During a recent predawn, Peaches and I see through our window falling snow turning the known world into a hazy mystery. His head feathers react to the weather’s periodic rumblings and its shiftings of darkness to light. The storm’s strength and outside’s fuzzy beauty instill wonder and awe. Sitting inside, we’re warm and protected.

A day later Peaches and I go walking in what remains of the snow. We tread down the driveway and onto the street. His excitement is apparent in quick moves behind my neck that shift him from shoulder to shoulder. His screams begin as normal, but I look up in case he’s spotting a predatory bird. Nope, those reverberations simply scream sheer joy to a large world.

Peaches and the snow match as white-on-white, except for several bright feathers that pop-up and fall in sync to his attention and mood. He tries to step onto my head but when my hat slips he marches down from my shoulder to perch on a forearm. His claws dig into a thickly padded sleeve that sways, and Peaches slips–lands on the ground but quickly recovers, accepting an offered finger for a lift to my shoulder.

While he’s with me, I scan constantly for predators like the Red-Tailed Hawks and occasional eagles that drift over this neighborhood. Who knows if a big bird really would grab Peaches from off my shoulder? But some insist it’s highly possible and I don’t argue. Fun with Peaches means doing my best to keep him safe.

My steps kick at this snow. It’s surprisingly deep, not slippery, and this beautiful day, so far, without passing cars offers silence and solitude. Except for Peaches’ long screams that periodically shatter any sense of peace, and at other times, so do his series of shouts in human-speak, “Hello! Hello!”

Back inside our home, tired Peaches watches me drop a couple of peanuts into his bowl. His feathers, at once soft-and-hard, brush my face as he moves from my shoulder to enter his cage. He ruffles those feathers and says, “Pretty bird!”, before lifting a favorite food that he gets only occasionally.

“Good boy, Peaches.”

A shell pings onto a metal floor, “Hello, hello!”

Dear Readers, have a great day! Diana