Day: March 20, 2020

Birds. I know birds. I had a unique childhood, being the daughter of “the bird lady of Burke.” My mom has always been a champion of animals, and when her friend in Fairfax who took in injured birds lamented the fact that she was the only such person in the area who did this and was becoming overwhelmed, my mom jumped in to help. At first, we got the occasional baby bird who fell out of a nest, usually a sparrow here and a robin there. My mom would do her best to nurse them back to health, but the survival rate was pretty low, especially for those who had been injured by a cat. Still, as word spread, we would have upwards of 60 birds in our dining and living rooms in the spring.

We had some who were with us for years, like Zeke, the horned lark. Early on in his stay with us, my mom tracked down a flock of horned larks in Chantilly. After we said our tearful goodbyes to Zeke, she held him up toward his brethren and croaked out, “Goodbye, Zeke. You’re free now.” Well, he failed to launch. He figured his daily sunbaths on the living room chair and free food were too good to give up.

Then we had “the pensioners,” as my dad referred to the grumpy old sparrows who lived below Zeke. They were named Prince and Misha, and we had to separate Zeke from them when my mom found him pinned down one morning with Misha’s beak in his chest. No doubt, Zeke did something to deserve it.

We raised a good number of blue jays in our day, but I’ll never forget Baby. He was a spirited young fellow whom my mom managed to release in the neighborhood. One day, a terrified young mother ran up to my mom and asked, “Have you heard about the blue jay who is terrorizing the children?! He dive bombs them when they climb to the top of the slide at the playground! He must have rabies or something!” Um, hmmm..”Well, I…” At that moment, who should appear in the tree above, but Baby the Terror, cheering happily down at my mom. The woman looked wild-eyed from Baby to my mother, and that was the end of Baby’s days in our neighborhood. We relocated him to a friend’s farm in the Shenandoah where there were no children on slides to dive bomb.

I have so many stories to tell, like the sea gull who enjoyed wading in pizza pans in the kitchen, Cricket the talking starling (no lie), the clump of chimney swifts who clung to our shirts, the woodpecker who would sit on my shoulder and slip his tongue in my ear when I least expected it, the purple martins, Wiley and Wattey, whom we took with us on a camping trip down the coast so we could release them with their flock in South Carolina (this time it took)…

After many years, my mom stopped taking in birds, but she couldn’t say no to the kids who would end up teary-eyed on our doorstep holding a sad little damaged bird. I think it took about 10 years after she officially quit to completely empty the house of birds. No, wait, I take that back. They have a solitary pigeon she rescued a few years ago named Bella. She thought he was a she, and he’s not very nice to her, but there you have it.

Our good friends, Natasha and Scott, said goodbye to their dog, Tessie, today, who must have been around 16 years old. They adopted her when she was a young and vivacious hound mix with the soul of a diva and the appetite of a teenage boy. We have looked after each other’s dogs over the years, and we quickly learned to prepare for Tessie’s arrival. She could snatch your just-made sandwich off the counter in the snap of a finger and then look you dead in the eye, thoroughly unashamed and deeply offended that you would address her in such a manner. After a moment, she’d slink off to her spot on the green couch, undoubtedly to plot her next move. Don’t think for a second she missed that fresh baguette you just stashed beside the toaster oven.

Tessie was forever on the lookout for strangers who had the gaul to walk down her block. Woe to the unsuspecting interloper and its human. She would begin an unrelenting howl as soon they appeared on the block and wouldn’t stop until they were out of sight. Since it worked every time, why change tactics? Despite Natasha and Scott’s efforts to calm her, she remained vigilant into her twilight years. As she aged and her eyesight weakened, she would sometimes bark at her dog friends, and then as we got closer, she would abruptly stop, but never really expressed regret. I always admired this about her; why apologize when you’re not really sorry?

Tessie was a drama queen who was used to getting her way. Natahsa tried to guide her toward home once when Tessie had other ideas. She began howling so pathetically that a woman (obviously, not from our block) accused Natasha of mistreating her. I found this hilarious because if I were to die and come back as a dog, I would want to live with Natasha and Scott. I once tried to coax her inside after her long doze in a sunny patch in the yard. After calling her several times, I tugged gently on her collar. You would have thought I began beating her with a baseball bat. She won another 20 minutes in the sun.

Yes, Tessie could be high maintenance, but she had a heart of gold. She was always up for a cuddle and never failed to greet you with her tail wagging and those loving, almond-shaped eyes that looked into your very soul. I loved how she’d nestle into her green sleeping bag and poke her head out the top, just far enough to make herself available for a good behind-the-ears scratch. I will miss her howl and Natasha’s accompanying, gentle scold. She was quite a special girl, and our block became a little less spirited today.