Cardinal Rules

We have visitors. No, not the type you think. Not out of town friends or relatives here to soak up some rays or dine in the splendor of Charlestonian cuisine. No, these visitors are far more colorful, more ornate, yet tantalizingly more elusive. In fact, they are birds, two of them as best as I can tell. They are cardinals, or so Lily says. Mr. and Mrs. C, I call them. I’m not sure how long they are staying; we don’t seem to have much to say about that. But, their presence is more than just a bit of seasonal charm. They are intruding on our senses and at some point they could prove to be less than charming to their hosts.

The focal point of our concern is that these feathered redheads, predominantly Mrs. C, appear to have delusions of moving in, and by that I mean move IN. The grounds of our home do not appear to be quite enough for these apparently upwardly mobile social climbers. Although for millennia the trees of this world have suited their forebears well enough, Mrs. C has apparently decided to push the evolutionary envelope by house hunting, and ours is the one they’ve set their sights on.

How do I know this? We have many windows in our home, facing all directions. At this juncture, there is barely one that has gone unpecked on, if I may coin a phrase. Starting almost like clockwork at 7:45 a.m., Mrs. C starts tapping on our bedroom windows. Incessantly. The pecking by itself would be sufficient to awaken us, but the wing flapping -- charming in some circles, I’m sure -- adds a certain note of panic to this morning serenade. She repeats this overture again and again and again. At some point, Lily and I just admit defeat and get out of bed since there is simply no sleeping through this feathered assault. Sometimes, I go to the window next to my side of the bed and stare back at her during those moments when she uses her toes to secure a tenuous foothold at the window’s edge. We make eye contact. She cocks her head in 12 different directions never taking her eyes off me while I unwittingly play her game by cocking my own head from side to side as if somehow this will have some meaning for her. So far, this does not appear to be the case. She chirps, however, with a certain methodical cadence straight at me that, I swear, has to mean something. I want to yell at her through the glass, “Dude! Please say it in English.” I’m not optimistic.

A word about Mr. C. I hesitate to jump to conclusions about these things, but as far as I can tell, Mrs. C most definitely wears the pants in this family. Mr. C has made a couple of appearances, but only in a supporting role. She does the talking. He flits around a bit, sometimes clinging to the window ledges next to her, but mostly he retreats. Probably back to his man cave. He may be more brightly colored -- he does have that on her -- but if it didn’t sound so weird in this context, I’d say he was henpecked.

And so it remains to learn what it is exactly Mrs. C is seeking. Maybe she’s just fed up with the way we use our TV remotes. Maybe she’d like to see us eat more organic foods. Maybe she just has designs on the third bedroom. It’s so hard to tell. But, I’ll tell you this: I’m not loving this early morning drama day after day. I’ve been consulting with Mojo on possible solutions since it appears, as you might imagine, he has more than a casual interest in this. But, sadly, English isn’t Mojo’s strong suit either.