Twitter: To utter successive chirping noises

Let me tell you about Wilferd the Wren, who every year builds his nest on the corner of my mountain cabin. The nest itself is cozy inside a semi-hollow log, with a floor on the bottom and a sloping roof made from a wooden slab. There are so many sticks in it, they protrude out of the hole that is his front door. Wilferd keeps a vigil outside the nest, really a twittering expert, shaking his feathers and jumping up and down on the aspen tree that grows about six feet from his place. Sometimes, I see him flitting from treetop to treetop and singing the most joyous melodic songs. He strings the themes together as though he had been tutored by Simon and Garfunkle. I kind of wait for the guitar accompaniment but so far, nada. It is a capella.

Once, I was resting on the picnic bench right under his nest and I noticed that he was unusually agitated. He chirped an urgent, strident call. I wondered if he had swallowed a worm the wrong way, but then he dove down towards the ground, barely missing me. I thought he was suggesting that I Move, but as I followed his dive I saw that there was a tiny green snake about five inches long that was scurrying just ahead of Wilferd towards the woodpile. Wilferd was defending his nest. He knew that Colorado is a Make My Day state.

As he regained his post in the tree, I got up and decided to rest inside the house to allay any fears that he might have about my own intentions. (I read later in a wildlife book that those green snakes are an endangered species in Colorado, and I know why. Too many of them have been in the wrong place -- close to a wren's nest -- and the wrong time -- when they are brooding -- to survive.)

There are other twitterers outside of my cabin. The mocking bird, Pasquale (I call him that because he is a tenor, and I can just see him in his clown's suit, pulling aside the curtain, and belting out, tears streaming down his cheeks, to the enthralled audience, that Laugh, Clown, Laugh song from Pagliacci.) (This was before television, kids, you may have to ask somebody to explain it to you.) Pasquale the mockingbird is looking for a mate. He hangs out in the tallest trees, on the tallest branch, or on the 50-foot-in-the-air light post. He tells the world his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations. He must be a young bird because he is not very big, and he sang all spring last year but never in the moonlight, which means that he never found a mate, and that is why his songs are so heartrending. (They stop singing when they find a partner, just like us humans.) Pasquale, we know the feeling. We hope you don't die of old age before you get lucky. Next year you'll be bigger. You'll have a better repertory. We are all rooting for you.

Frank and Jesse were a little different. When we first moved to Colorado, I wondered what kind of birds those fancy black and white ones were with the long tail feathers. I thought they might be called cop car birds, but I was informed that they were "Oklahoma pheasants," or magpies. The kid from the ranch next door told me that they were not really welcomed in the bird world: they stole babies from other birds' nests and used the housing for themselves, for example. I had to have a pair. I paid him a dollar to steal two fledglings for me, and he delivered them the next day. (I am sure he told his momma that the crazy lady from Texas wanted them.) Now I had two bandit birds and I didn't know what to feed them. I scrambled an egg and poked it into their beaks, making twittering noises myself, and sure enough, they ate it. We got along pretty well together, me digging worms from the garden and they making themselves at home in my living room for about two weeks until they got to the point that better thinking convinced me to turn them out, and I did. For a while, they would both come to the bedroom window and squawk at me, and I would squawk back at them. But after a while, they went on their scandalous ways and never came back like the teenagers they were.

Now, when I see a magpie flying over, I call out, "Is that you, Frank? Jesse?" But they keep on flying. After all, it was 35 years ago. It was a fun experience, once done, never repeated.

This year, I thought it would be cool, a great adjunct to the back yard, to start feeding the finches. Last year, I saw a few of them around the regular bird feeder, and I thought, Oh boy! Let's attract more of the darling little creatures.

The finch feeder I was able to obtain at the local hardware store is a sock about nine inches long made of small mesh. The food, thistle seeds, is poured into the sock and voila! it is armed and ready. I suspended it from the apricot tree, and sure enough, it wasn't long before several female finches appeared, and then some redheaded males, and one bird with a gold head. Bingo!

Sometimes, there are three to five little birds hanging upside down and sideways on that sock, working away, chowing down. Just some casual twittering: "Cheap. Cheap. Cheap-cheap." (A commentary on the sock? Everyone's a critic.) They are mostly friendly to each other, sharing the bounty selflessly, although yesterday I saw one female chase off a male. Mostly, the eaters just move over to make room for newcomers. Such grace. Such atmosphere. Such harmony, not often seen in nature.

Molly chases them off sometimes, but they come back, secure in the knowledge that dogs can't fly. I guess it is worth the $30 a month to have such a sideshow directly outside the kitchen window.

More about Molly

You (probably) already know I have a wild, sedate, smart as a whip, persuasive border collie/Australian Cattle Dog (if you didn't know that, please see my previous posts). To be more exact, she has me. The Cattle Dog part of her (mongrel, Smithfield, dingo, Bull Terrier, dingo, Dalmation, dingo, and Highland Rough Collie) results in all sorts of behaviors. You name it, she does it.

Wild Molly: Sometimes, she just can’t stand it any longer. Out of the blue, she will begin to run in the house. She has adjusted, mostly, to living with two old people and having a very tiny back yard to hang out in. But sometimes she begins to run without warning–from one point to another, like she is following a program. She touches base with an object, a chair, a bit of dust on the floor (well there are lots of bits of dust on the floor), one of her toys, something, and then turns on a dime and rushes over to another target chosen at random, and returns joyously, as though she is accomplishing a task and being repaid for it. Occasionally the run will happen on the stairs, and she chooses a particular step in the string of steps and noses it, (You’re IT!) And returns to the landing, reverses herself, back to the chosen step, and returns, and I mean FAST. She stops just before exhaustion takes over, but she seems very satisfied. I encourage her. I yell out, Run, Molly, RUN! And she does. We can’t do this if my husband is present, but we manage to accomplish this exercise quite frequently.

Sedate Molly. She sits and looks at me. And Looks at me. She is trying to fathom what makes me tick, what I am up to next. She is ready for anything, but she would like a clue as to what it would be.

Smart as a whip Molly. She knows many commands: “Go find the ball!” “Eat your food.” “Want a drink?” “Do you want to go for a ride?” “Molly’s place!” “Molly Up!” “Stop that!” Then, “Go find Mr. Treat!” prompts her to find her Kong and drop it at my feet in the kitchen, where she waits patiently as I stuff it with doggy goodies, return it to her, and she runs into the living room, lies down on the Persian Rug, and begins to harass the Kong until it divulges the contents. I hope that whoever invented the Kong is making a fortune, $9 for a little plastic thingy, but it sure does give her pleasure, and me peace for about 10 minutes.

Molly the persuader. When she wants something, like "Play ball?" she will begin to whine while she drops the toy at my feet. If nothing happens, she will come up to me and sit. Next she will put both paws on the chair I am in. Next, both paws, one at a time, go on my shoulders. Then gently, oh so gently, she will lower her 65 pound, lithe, muscular torso down on my fat, fragile body so she is in a position to lick my face. The crowning gesture is, she will lay her majestic head upon my once lusty bosum. I swear that if she could smile or smirk, that would be displayed. We call this the bear hug. It’s better than chocolate.

Now, if she whines in front of the door, it is poop time. That gets immediate response.

When we are in Arizona, I use PetSmart for vets. They seem to be mostly young, female, probably recently graduated from school. They are very enthusiastic about Molly, just as she is enthusiastic about them. They comment about her shiny coat, her lack of restraint, her otherwise Attitude. They ask, “What do you feed her?” Expecting to hear, I suppose, one of the high dollar dog foods. I tell them, “Purina.” They seem surprised. They tell me, she should be trained to be an agility dog. Now, agility dog trainers in Phoenix make about the same amount of money as a licensed plumber, so that option has so far been denied her. Here in rural Colorado, her vet pulls calves, doctors horses, wears cowboy clothes, and is kind of laconic, John Wayne style. So she has the best of both worlds.

I’ve taken her up to the cabin in the woods twice. She is really excited about a new place, new smells, a different environment. I’ve got to find a sheep ranch that is fenced, has trainer dogs, with herders who have lots of patience. Then maybe, just maybe, Molly won’t have to herd invisible sheep inside the house.

Wildlife

Lately there has been a spate of publicity about a cultural social phenomenon. A new term has been coined, "cougars," and it refers to older women dating younger men. On May 28th, 2009 (just before shutting down its printing and delivery to our front door), The Denver Post headlined this story, "On the Prowl" at the same time that they identified the custom as acceptable and without a negative tone. Is that straddling the fence or what?

I suppose that if you can call older men who pursue younger women as "wolves" that the masterminds who coin new definitions for English words felt that a similar form of wildlife should be found for their female counterparts, and the word "cougar" jumped to mind. If we were to consider the natural world, no "wolf" in his right mind would tackle a "cougar," even on a dare, but there is no one to speak up for our real wildlife but me.

Let's face it, society has changed. The days of barefoot and pregnant are mostly over. Women are better educated, and are left single either because of divorce or death of a spouse. They are already working and earning good money, their children are grown, and yet they hanker for companionship. Are they to choose men their own age (if there are any around who are not burdened by baggage they have accumulated over time), or will they choose to be with younger men (more virile) who are not interested in a long term commitment? -- not that the woman herself has that for an agenda either.

My take on the problem is, let it be. It is not worth titillating over. It is a personal and private choice and relationships are, and should be, personal and private. What the dickens does a difference in age have to do with any of it, since it is not to be long term anyway? Sure, someone is bound to be hurt, in spite of the participants' denials. But we don't learn from success, we learn from failure, and that applies to social life as well as business or education or sports, or the practice of medicine. Thomas Edison was chided because he had tried about 1,000 different metals for his light bulb filament. Mr. Edison replied, well, we know 1,000 metals that don't work.

We may get this relationship thing down in time. But I doubt it. One adage does come to mind though, ladies. You play, you pay.