for the birds

Right. After a terrific backrub/massage courtesy of an angel, and an unusually good night's sleep (many who know of my battle with light sleeping and insomnia will realize how novel a deep sleep is for me), I found myself up at 6:45 this morning. I can't even get myself up that early during the week, due to said sleep problems, so to be up that early on a Saturday, and by choice, is unheard of.

I was sitting at the window next to my desk, gulping the first tea of the day, and watching the early morning sun slide across the rooftops of the townhouses opposite my building, and I noticed quite a few birds up and about, and they all seemed rather busy. I must here profess my ignorance as to bird types, so my descriptions will be based on what they look like. A black and white one was pecking at tree sap, a tiny yellow and gray one was flitting around the trunk of the tree with a piece of leaf in its beak as though looking for a hiding place, and a blue and white one was observing the goings on, and this is all in the same tree, mind you. Then a big mottled brown and white one with a red-orange head, and some sort of nut (or possibly a berry) in its beak, lands on the corner of the wall just outside my window and proceeds to make its way up to where the wall joins the roof overhang. It then pokes the nut (or berry) into a little crevice in the roof overhang, and once it decides the nut (or berry) is secure, it flies off. About ten minutes later, it returns with another nut (or berry), repeats the wall-climbing/treasure-stashing routine, and flies off again. In the space of an hour, the bird came back three times.

As I'm watching all the activity outside my window, I get the sudden urge to do something productive, which is often the effect early, chilly autumn mornings have on me (or it could be the tea, I suppose). There is shopping to be done, laundry to be washed, soup to be made, Persuasion to be read, Firefly episodes to be watched (courtesy of the same angel), journal entries to be written, an owl needlework project to be finished for a blue-eyebrowed darling great aunt who has a thing for owls, space heaters to be dug out of the closet and situated in rooms, and a half-finished watercolor painting to be considered for improvements or quietly turned over to begin again. Only two days to do it all.

But more tea and window-watching first. I want to see if the nut (berry) bird comes back.