Jack makes the deadline for his Wednesday guest post – phew – –

We are wakened every morning by birdsong at dawn, which tells the cats they’ll be fed soon. Don’t get the wrong idea; they eat cat food. Wendy doesn’t have the advantage, like me, of being deaf in one ear so she usually feeds the cats. I just bury my good ear in the pillow.

When I do get up I grab my first cup of coffee and head to the front enclosed porch (also the catio) for a cigarette and listen to the birds. I’ve never been terribly interested in wild birds although I have friends who definitely are, so I know a few things about them (the friends and birds).

Although we live near the middle of town we have a large back yard and we see lots of feathered friends, both there and out front as well. There are two pairs of blue jays, another two pairs of robins, one pair of cardinals, numerous sparrows, lots of house swifts and at least one very colorful woodpecker.

Every morning, one of them says the same thing.

“BRIDget, BRIDget, BRIDget”, he calls.

I finally found him: an American robin. (Robins are a different bird in Scotland.) For awhile it was just that, then Bridget began to answer.

“Here, here, here – -“

This went on for a few weeks, and I assumed they were a happy bird couple, oh how sweet. But then a couple of days ago, a third bird entered the conversation. (Does this make it an avion a trois? Or a feathered love triangle?)

The third bird began stringing whole sentences together, and from what limited information I have of birdsong, some of those louder whistles just had to be profanity. You know how, sometimes, you’re listening to a foreign language you don’t understand, but you totally get it?

This is how the morning conversations began to go….

Robin “BRIDget, BRIDget, BRIDget – -“

Bridget – “Here, here, here – -“

Marion, the third bird – “You never call or write! The kids are starving, and the nest is a disaster. Who is that hussy Bridget??”

Bridget – “Me, me, me”

I almost feel sorry for Robin, caught between two nests like this.