Birdy

around in midair and lands on the top perch, at least four times her height.It’s as if I jumped off the porch right up onto the roof. She peeps at me from there. I try to peep back.
    She checks the bars of the cage with her beak and nibbles some cuttlebone. Cuttlebone is from a fish; it has calcium and other minerals for birds. She constantly tries to talk to me, or maybe she’s trying to discover any other birds around. There’s a sad sound in the peep, interrogative, going up at the end , peeEEP? She opens her beak half way when she says it and of ten says it just as she leaves one perch for another. Perhaps it’s a signal to let other birds know she’s changing position. I don’t really know enough about canaries.
    When it gets dark, I cover her cage with a cloth to protect her from drafts.
    The next day is Sunday. I see her trying to bathe in the water cup so I put a saucer of water in the cage. She goes down immediately with a peep that’s different from the others, shorter, more like PEep? She stands on the edge of the dish, shakes her feathers impossibly fast, stretches out her wings to show feathers individually, then throws herself into the water with another short PEep? She goes in and out, splashing, wiggling. There’s a concentration, a total involvement; nothing passive. I’ve watched hundreds of pigeons take baths in water or in dust but it was slow motion compared to Birdie.
    After she’s splashed all the water from the saucer and made a soggy mess out of the newspapers on the floor of the cage, she flies wildly around, almost crashing into the bars. Her flight feathers are so wet, they hang bedraggled, resting on the perch. The feathers around her face clump in little bunches. She dashes back and forth, from perch to perch, shaking, vibrating her whole body. Drops of water fly across the room even onto the lenses of the binoculars. They’re like comets charging into my miniature world.
    Finally, most of the water shaken off, Birdie begins to preen herself. She takes each feather in her beak and combs it out to the tip. She leans back frequently to the oil sack at the tip of her tail and spreads a thin film of oil over the newly washed feathers, one at a time. The bath, from beginning till end, finishing with a satisfied flurry of fluffiness, takes almost two hours.
    I’m really in love with Birdie now. She’s so dainty, so quick, so skilled, and she flies so gracefully. I want to have her fly in my room free but I’m afraid I’ll hurt or frighten her putting her back into the cage. It’s very hard to wait.
    That afternoon, I give Birdie a first taste of treat food. I try peeping when I give it to her, the question peeps , peeEEP? I give treat food in a special cup shaped to fit between the bars of the cage and rest on the edge of the middle perch. I keep my hand as near to it as I can when she comes to eat.
    The feed has a smell of anise and is sweet. I only put a few grains of seed in the dish. Birdie looks at me where I am with my hand near the food. She cocks her head and tries to see me from different angles. She comes close, then flies away. She pretends she isn’t interested at all and goes down to eat the regular seed. I know she’s curious. At last she comes up and quickly steals one seed out of the dish. She goes to the other end of the perch to eat it. She queeEEP?s at me and I try to queeEEP? back. She comes again and takes another seed. She eats it looking me in the eyes. I don’t move.
    She puts one foot onto the little dish to hold it and eats the rest of the seeds. Her foot’s within an inch of my fingers. I can see the tiny pink scales and light veins running down her legs next to my own massive whorled fingerprints. I can smell her, the smell of eggs when they’re still in the shell, probably the smell of feathers. I don’t remember just that smell from pigeons. Pigeon smell is musky with something of old dust; this is a thin perfume.
    When she’s finished, she lets go of the dish and wipes her bill on the perch but doesn’t go away.
    I queeEEP? at her but she only looks at me. I queeEEP? again. She sees me; she’s questioning what I really am. It lasts maybe ten seconds, a long time for a bird. Then she goes down to the floor of the cage and eats a few grains of sand. I’m very happy.
    Next day, I think about Birdie all day at school. I don’t even want to look at people. People can be so gross, especially grown-ups. They grunt and groan, make swallowing