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The Silence of the Birds

By Gloria Diaz

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Fort Wayne Reader

2018-09-11

I noticed in August that my backyard sounded different.

Technically, it’s still summer. I don’t care what the stores are pushing, it’s early September, not late September, although everyone is already back in school, Rod Stewart. We’ve got summer heat, and I’ll keep saying it’s summer until September 21 or so. But I noticed that when I woke up last month, the yard was still. I don’t know what the birds were doing. Taking a morning nap? Out hunting for food? Whatever they were doing, they were quiet.

If I weren’t so connected with the school year, I might say the sound was a late mid summer lull, when the season is at full-bore in terms of heat and corn and tomatoes ripening, and all that. But since school starts in mid-August, summer seems shorter and shorter and shorter.

I should be used to this by now. But I’m not.

I didn’t get to do more of the things I wanted, and it’s my own damn fault. It was 93 degrees today, but the pools are closed, so no swimming for me. Things are kind of tough for me right now, so the pleasures of summer were limited to my own backyard. My smartphone was my entertainment system this summer. A friend gave me a chainsaw, something I’ve wanted for decades, so I spent a few afternoons out in the yard, cutting up gigantic weeds and tons of branches. I had my phone with me, so while I was lopping everything down to a manageable size, I had a movie running. I think it was David Lynch or some other movie person who wondered why anyone would watch a movie on a smartphone, but I appreciate the technology that allows me to do that. It beat lugging the flat screen and DVD/VCR player out into the yard.

I also used my smartphone to take a picture of two bugs having sex on a grapevine leaf. I also took pictures of the bird’s nest built directly over the door to my outside storage. A couple of nights, I’d step out the back door to a flutter of wings that scared the crap out of me. I finally noticed the nest. I was excited, thinking I’d see the tiny chicks grow up on my porch. They never made it. One night I walked out the door, and startled the mom. She had tipped the nest and an egg fell out. I tried to put it back, and ended up dropping it on the edge of my rain barrel. Then, when I made it home after a very late night, I saw the nest ripped from its perch. Either the mom had tipped the nest again, or a predator dislodged it. I felt bad enough after making the mom bolt from the nest, but the surviving egg didn’t have a chance either.

Life is fragile. But I still feel bad about the momma bird and her eggs. What compelled her to build a nest so close to not one, but two doors, I’ll never know. There are plenty of trees in the backyard. Maybe my porch looked homey. It’s out of the wind and sun. Location, location, location.

I hope, though, that momma bird is okay. Maybe she can try again, and have chicks that make it out of the nest on their own accord, and not because some stupid homeowner decided to go outside and freak the mom out, causing her to knock an egg earthward merely by taking off.

But the absence of chirping reminds me of the birds that aren’t there. And the chicks who never made it. And it’s the sound of mid/late summer, damn it. It’s almost the end of summer. A little less than three weeks to go, but for me, it’s not over until the calendar says it is.