First Seeds

It snowed two days ago, but today I am planting lettuce. Years of pushing seeds in the ground and I still think there's something magical about the first shoots poking up out of the dirt. A month from now, two? I will be collecting whole salad spinners worth of leaves and if that's not a sign of faith, hope, love, I don't know what is. The world keeps whirling.

The mourning dove that (stupidly, ignorantly, kindly) sat on a cowbird egg last year, is back and possibly about to hatch another cowbird. Every time I open the back door to let the dog out, the two of us look at each other. Not the dog. The bird. Her eyes are glassy and wide and I have never seen them closed. Always vigilant. So, we have that in common.

For a year I have been writing pieces of something that could be a memoir. The process is like digging around in the dirt. What's down there? What should I leave right where it is? What needs to be lifted out, exposed to the light? The truth is I don't know.

The truth is I have something to say, but I'm not sure I should say it. But when has that ever stopped me? My plan for planting the lettuce is to clear the moldering leaves from the hard, packed ground. See what lies beneath. Draw lines with my finger in the dirt and drop the seeds. It may take the entire afternoon, but I'm in no hurry. It takes time to plant,

time to hatch a cowbird, time to write the truth.      

The black bird on the patio

is sleek and beautiful, the feathers iridescent and I love it immediately, spending a couple of days trying to catch it on our bird feeder, so I can sneak up quietly and take a picture. Ever since the weirdo Cardinal incident of March 2021, I've been obsessed with the birds in my backyard. 

The main character in the book I'm working on is a bird expert and I freely admit I know next to nothing about them, but I am eager to learn. Confession: I used to think bird-watching was a boring hobby. Who has time to sit around watching birds? Also, I have that poem Letters from a Father by Mona Van Duyn in my head, and while I love that poem, it has always made me associate bird-watching with old people. 

Maybe I am an old person now though because I am getting a kick out of watching these birds. This sleek lovely black one, for example. I have a bird identifying book on my kitchen counter, right by the window where the bird feeder hangs, so I can easily look up who is who. The black one is too small to be a Blackbird. It's not speckled enough to be a Starling. I find a match, the Cowbird, and I am so excited, 

for about two seconds.

Cowbirds are what they call brood parasites. The female follows other birds around, finds where they're nesting, and sneaks in and lays eggs in the other birds' nests. The unsuspecting bird nester bird sits on the Cowbird's eggs. And get this: the Cowbird eggs are bigger and when those birds hatch, they crowd out the others or even push the other baby birds out, which honestly, seems so shitty and selfish

and sad. And even worse, in our yard, because if you remember what happened with the freaky Cardinal, my husband taped a box up under the porch eaves in case it needed a safe warm place to burrow or whatever you call it. Well, the Cardinal didn't bother with the box, but a lovely Mourning Dove couple moved in,

and now I can see the Mourning Dove mother sitting on her eggs (IS ONE OF THEM A COWBIRD EGG??!!), the father coo-coo-cooing close by, the asshole Cowbirds hopping around our bird feeder and I feel totally complicit in the whole mess. 

But as a side note, my bird book did point out that while the Cowbird's nesting (or rather, not-nesting) style is detrimental to many songbirds, it's not a 100% sure thing for them either, evolutionarily-speaking. Many birds, when they notice the Cowbird egg, abandon the nest. Some Cowbirds do end up being raised by the unsuspecting foster birds, but they never imprint on their own kind and therefore never mate themselves. In the end something like only 3% of all Cowbirds survive past the nesting stage. 

Two of them are in my backyard. Damn it. 

Male Mourning Dove watching nearby

Female Mourning Dove possibly about to hatch a Cowbird