The Sparrows

I have some new friends. Here’s one of them.  When I wake up and go to the kitchen at dawn, they are already waiting in the window and set up a loud, complaining twitter, letting me know I’m a minute later than I was yesterday and they’ve been waiting for their breakfast too long. I get a cup of grain and they hop away until it is strewn on the window sill and then they fly back, twittering in appeased contentment. There are occasional flare ups and then there is some shoving and pushing and pecking at each other to get at the grain first. I remember what Charles Darwin said in ‘The Descent of Man’ -

“We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, and curiosity, imitation, reason, etc., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals.”

I see the human passion for over-eating here, and I wonder where on earth they put it all away. Because the dawn feeding isn’t enough, they are there throughout the day. I have a strong suspicion that they have a lookout posted in the azalea just outside, and every time someone comes into the kitchen, an alert is given and the whole troupe arrives, chirping with entitled expectation.

They grow bolder and more curious every day. They come in and discover where the grain tin is kept. Self-service will be in vogue soon. They fly about and check the real estate. I wonder if they are going to move in and raise a family and make me an auntie.