Marianela Medrano-Marra
Shifting from the laptop screen my eyes glance at the family of cardinals landing on the deck, one after the other, forming a red line, to then disperse in a disorderly manner. Their perky crests sticking up proudly, chests open, confidently pecking the seeds stuck between the boards, while a few finches dance their way around the openings in the hanging feeder. I push the computer aside to give the birds my undivided attention. A family of blue jays, five of them, arrives, and the cardinals fly away. The blue jays establish supremacy, and the finches too depart. One blue jay ventures so close to the glass door that I can see how the blue darkens in a circle around the neck, the wings and tail spotted with white and light blue. In the distance, I hear other jays singing out their dominant call. The visiting jay finds its way around, hopping from one end of the deck to the other, until a red-bellied woodpecker bullies it away. Not content with pecking at the suet feeder hanging to the left, the woodpecker flits to the cylinder feeder, and once again chases away the finches, who had ever so stubbornly returned. I look in ecstasy at the gleaming red cap, the slender body and the long beak and feast on the privilege of my seat.
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