Home away from home: Feathered friends

 For more than 2.5 decades, I have been an animal lover. I find joy in being around animals and watching their behavior. Strangely, my interest never included birds, and I never wondered why. In 2020, my husband bought a camera with 100x zoom, and I felt like this new world of birds opened up to me. It was then that I came to this startling realization - I hadn't been interested in birds because I had never been able to see them clearly. Thanks to my short-sighted vision, I had always seen them as tiny dots in the sky. Other than a crow, pigeon and sparrow, I hadn't seen any birds at close quarters, clearly enough to see their features and identify them. But now, all that had changed. I saw colorful kingfishers, vibrant parrots, an alert owl and so much more. 

My husband became an avid bird enthusiast, and I initially just tagged along as company, but later genuinely developed an interest in them. I became good at spotting birds, and the number of birds I could identify went up to the double digits. When I moved to my current apartment in Amherst, I felt the typical loneliness. I was away from my parents and husband for the first time, and had no family or friends in the city. I didn't even have my plants. There was so little that was familiar. But my room had a balcony, and that balcony had a bird feeder. And soon enough, there were birds coming to eat from it.

The first time I saw a bird, I froze lest it fly away. But over time, I realized that they weren't so scared and wouldn't fly away as long as the balcony door was closed. I felt a sense of familiarity and companionship in these birds that visited me every day. I wake up to their chirping, and I see them several times a day. I've even started putting out water for them, although most of them prefer the feed over water. 

In the evenings when I'm working or busy with chores, every time I look out, I see a bird or two. Happily flying up and down, perching on the feeder, eating away. This is something I really look forward to every day, and I'm so grateful for their company.