BIRD ENVY | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: BIRD ENVY | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
05/05/20
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It was a week into the quarantine. Though unseasonably cold for this time of year, with many northern states experiencing snow storms, everywhere I looked Spring was shouting, I have arrived. Flowers bloomed reds, magentas, and various shades of purple. Trees budded, sometimes sprouting white or pink blooms, before opening their leaves to greet the new season. Bermuda grass transformed from a straw-like texture to a soft, lively green. I cherished these beautiful reminders that God was still present during this pandemic.

“Monty, come check this out,” my husband called from the foyer.

I rushed from the kitchen, down the wide hallway toward the front of the house to see him tilting his head at a crooked angle as he stared between the blind-slats at something outside.

“It’s a bird nest,” he said. “Can you believe it?”

I peered closely to where he pointed, surprised to see a small bowl-like structure nestled at the six o’clock position of the faux-pine wreath I’d hung during Christmastime and forgotten. The nest was expertly wedged between the wreath and the glass, so that even when the garland shifted as the door opened and closed, it didn’t crash to the ground. I was amazed at its smooth interior and imagined Mama Bird carefully molding the grass ridges with her beak, over and over again, like a craftsman expertly sanding the inside of a perfectly carved wooden bowl.

I knew the prudent thing would be to remove the nest before Mama Bird laid her eggs. Yet for some unfathomable reason, I couldn’t bring myself to destroy the haven she’d created. I didn’t have anything against birds in general, I’d just always been too busy to take notice. Though I had recently come to enjoy the short hummingbird season after our previous homeowner left a feeder hanging off the back deck. It was the pull of obligation that had me replenishing the sugary red liquid into that feeder each year. I never expected to get any pleasure from watching this territorial, albeit adorable, little creature defend its turf as if it had somehow earned that plentiful liquid in the glass dispenser—but I did.

Within days, three little white eggs appeared in the nest. A fourth egg arrived the following day, and the fifth and final egg showed up the next. I became inexplicably obsessed with this bird and her soon-to-be hatchlings, eagerly welcoming any distraction from my growing fear. I flashed a light into the nest each morning to see how things were progressing. Before long, the eggs started taking on a green-bluish hue. Then black spots appeared. I researched the eggs online and became almost certain that our Mama Bird was a finch.

Two weeks later, the first three eggs finally cracked and suddenly the nest was filled with pink little hatchlings sparsely sprinkled with feathers and squawking softly through cream-sickle beaks. Within no time, they were holding up their heads, mouths wide open like a vocal trio singing in unison. A week later they were already going through that awkward—ugly—stage most little ones experience at some point.

I could no longer see all three babies. The trio had grown so large, they were piled on top of one another so that only one bird was visible at a time. I wondered if the siblings on the bottom felt as suffocated as I was beginning to feel in lockdown. Perhaps they, too, felt time warping like a crooked trail going nowhere. Maybe their home, like mine—after a month of only leaving for food and necessities—was rapidly feeling like a prison. Though I wasn’t sure any of us really wanted to escape.

The Bible says that God didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). Yet, I couldn’t seem to control the terror that filled me each time I left the house. Maybe this fear of contamination was the reason I became so obsessed with these little hatchlings. Watching them gave me something positive to look forward to each day. These small creatures represented new life, and the moments I spent admiring their daily growth seemed contrary to the ever-present shadow of death looming over the world as Covid-19 continued to consume hundreds of victims every single day. Those hatchlings eventually soared far away from the constraints of that small nest to find a life far away from the devastating effects of this pandemic.

I never imagined I would envy a bird.

Nonfiction

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