Joann Merritt's Essays

Joann’s Jottings
May, 2007

Early morning May 13, 2007, Mother’s Day

• Mockingbirds and resident porch swallows serenade me…
• Cactus Wren scolds a warning to not feel too important today…
• Eurasian Collared Dove manages only 3 notes which he repeats over and over…
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird displays his jewel red gorgeous gorget to perfection…
• Male Bullock’s Oriole wears white-accented orange & black spring feathered suit…
• Tiny Verdin brightens the day with his golden yellow face and red wing patch…
• White-winged Doves throatily ask “Who cooks for you?” and I answer “Gary and Patti do today!”…
• Barn Swallows perform aerial dance - guess the neighborhood donkey didn’t like it as he rudely “hee-hawed”…
• Ol’ Curve-bill woke up in a funk, he doesn’t sing, just glares with orange eyes while eating his peanut butter and jelly breakfast…
• Inca Dove parades daintily across the driveway, shouldn’t be calling “cold coke” as its too early in the day and if he’d attended the MHS Bulldog baseball game the previous day it wouldn’t be “Ball four”, he would call “Strike three!” - since towels are in the washing machine I expect he’s calling “Whirl-pool”…
• The grape jelly evidently sweetened the Curve-billed Thrasher’s disposition because now he tries a few tricky ballet steps around the edge of the pool - not really for my pleasure, tho, as I spy a Curve-bill he has his orange eye on, I enjoy it anyway…
• Western Kingbirds nervously twitter Mother’s Day greetings…
• An hour later Don hears the White-eyed Vireo around his lawn mower shed. I search but can’t find him - Aha! Now I hear him across the road in the tall elms - in the burr oak - the soapberry trees - flying, calling everywhere. Our neighbor’s big business sign “Whiteye Enterprises” lets him know he’s welcome here…

Then some of my own fledglings start returning to the nest and I enjoy my children and grandchildren the rest of this great day.