Finches

The baby and I stepped onto the porch and a startled pair of goldfinches lit out of our front flower garden, yellow flashes tracing a sine wave across the street, arcing upward then swooping back down then up again to land in the tall pine in the yard of the across-the-street neighbors’ house, the pine where the owl lives. We saw it once when the across-the-street neighbors’ house was being renovated, back before it was the across-the-street neighbors’ house, when it was Denny’s house; Denny was the boyfriend of the daughter of the old man who’d lived there sixty years. Denny was fixing it for the family to sell. We made small talk most of one summer while I weeded the flower patch. He’d give me tips on tuck-pointing and I’d give him basil from out of my garden, little nothings to pass the time and create a bond but not too much. Denny scared up the owl one day while working on the gutters, got too high up and close to the tree I assume. We’ve heard it once or twice since, and the across-the-street neighbors have confirmed it’s still living in the old tree.

The owl’s been leaving pellets on our driveway. The driveway runs the length of our house, connecting street to alley, largely useless to our purposes really but more work to change than it’s worth, and more expense than we can afford. The owl leaves the pellets at the back end of the driveway specifically, under my next door neighbor’s tree that overhangs the driveway. I assume it’s diving down - the owl, I mean, not the tree; keep up - and catching mice then sitting up in that tree to eat. My big kids spot the pellets, somehow able to tell them from bits of mud, often they spot them suddenly, coming to a full stop while in the middle of running to or from the backyard, “ooh an owl pellet! at least I think so!” They point out to me with sticks the tiny bones and bits of fur that jut out. I always suppress a grossed-out shiver and summon enthusiasm - part of the trick of parenting, as with all relationships you care about, is to not really be yourself - with which to animate the praise I voice - “wow, well spotted!” and so on. I try not to imagine the little mice shrieking as the owl carries them away.

My baby’s in a shrieking phase herself now. She has very particular wants like for instance gathering up all twenty board books that were strewn across the living room floor and carrying them to her mother to read, carrying them all by herself without no one’s help, and when she does not get what she wants it’s a loud rasping sigh of exasperation then a sob then a high-pitched scream of agony, redfaced and tearful, and sometimes flopping backward from a kneeling or standing position, consequences be damned. I’ve seen it go on for twenty minutes sometimes. Once a tantrum like that is full-blown it has a life of its own, like an avalanche or a mode of production. It’s hard to unmake. Sometimes stepping outside will interrupt it though, which is why I scooped her up naked - I can’t remember why she had no clothes on, maybe that was part of the tantrum? - and plunked her into the baby carrier and rushed out onto the porch, scaring up the goldfinches.

I’ve seen the goldfinches around the yard and our front tree regularly. They come to the feeder off our back deck sometimes too. I assume they’re a breeding pair. I assume the across-the-street neighbors are as well, given their age and couplehood and that great big house they bought, with the big backyard. I hope so. It would be nice to have more fledglings around here to make eyes at. Hopefully with this heat wave, between the closed windows and the AC cranked up high, they didn’t hear the baby shrieking. If would-be breeding pairs actually knew in advance what it was like no one would ever fill a nest.