Time is For the Birds

I keep hearing the parakeet singing. The only problem is that I don't have a parakeet. My daughter bought me a bird clock as a punishment present.  Every hour, on the hour, it plays a different bird call.  At first, every time it chirped out a tune, I started, thinking there was a bird in the house.  Now, except for the Mourning Dove, I usually find a lazy thought about the parakeet floating through my mind until it hits the brain cell that retains the information that I haven't owned a parakeet in years.  Then, the brain cell that remembers the clock kicks in.

But the main effect of this clock has been to create a completely new and strange interest in birds and birdwatching.  Suddenly, bird songs I have heard in the backyard since I was a child have meaning to me.  I know which bird is making them.  And moreover, I hear birds that I never see, birds I didn't even realize lived in my backyard.

Perhaps it is old age.  I never had time before to sit on the deck and listen to birds or note the colors and plumage of birds or even think about identifying them.  And the clock doesn't scare me once an hour the way it did at first.

Except the Mourning Dove, that's still just too spooky.