Stop and Smell the People

Will Puppy save the baby birds?

Every year at this time I become the world’s biggest hypocrite. (The rest of the year I’m the run-of-the-mill hypocrite.)

I tell people all the time how much I loathe birds. Hate isn’t a big enough word. Then Sunday we find a bird nest in one of our front porch planters and I turn into St. Francis. (For the heartless, he LOVED all animals.) Anyway, we do all we can to allow any baby creatures -that happen to be born on our property- the chance to live to adulthood. Sort of the opposite of BP.

We found a nest of tiny Pine Siskins (little peeps, basically) in one of our Junipers. I think it’s a Juniper. We are very excited. Showed Crowley. Chirped out our acceptance -in my manly way- to the mother and father Siskins watching our every move. They chirped back. We’re all on the same page.

Save for a red-haired cat that up until today had been cute to us.

We walked outside after dinner and on our front steps a dead baby Siskin. I wasn’t positive, but the amount of blood told me this was more than a baby dropping from the nest. The missing head was a hint, too. Sorry to upset you. That damn cat.

Early this morning I ran to the grocery for (human) baby essentials and when I got back

the evil cat was sitting on my steps glaring at the Juniper. There’s only two baby SIskins left!

I don’t have time to go buy a wire fence to protect the nest from the cat. I must run to work in minutes. All I have is Puppy. I reached inside the front door and grabbed one of my son’s favorite friends, Puppy!

So Puppy will stand guard until I can go to the hardware store and get some wire fence.

Good luck today baby Siskins. May the circle of life not catch up with you just yet… MR