How to train your cat-bird
The day couldn’t have been better – at least concerning weather. Not a single cloud was visible in the sky; the early afternoon sun was shining brightly, hulling my backyard into a broad daylight; the two big trees at each end made for a magnificent play of light and shadow as I stood there, looking through my kitchen window and observing what was going on in my garden.
All things considered, I suppose she didn’t know I was there. Had she known about me watching her, I was sure she wouldn’t have been doing just what she was doing.
The little grey bird bath in my backyard had already been there when I had moved in a couple of years ago – it had never bothered me, and I had actually found the occasional birds’ twittering coming from behind my house to be quite pleasant during most of the day.
Even when she had moved in a few years later, she had never really seemed to care about it – I could have sworn she didn’t even know it was there, hadn’t it been for what I was witnessing in this very moment.
“Get lost, you flying rats!” a thick, heavy pinecone, most likely a ricochet, hit the window pane in front of me with a loud clank, making me wince for just a second.
I knew that she could have a somewhat, say, uncouth side to her every now and then, especially when she was upset, but never before had I seen her this aggressive.
“This is my place! Mine!” another pinecone that had missed its target flew into my direction, this time hitting the wall right next to my window, “Now get lost! And don’t you dare come back!”
What could have possibly gotten into her?
Gilda was sitting in the middle of the birdbath, resting on her haunches like a proud watch-dog and eyeing her surroundings with a predator-like glare, her face petrified to a grim and unforgiving grimace.
She still hadn’t noticed me – her head was slightly turned away from me, and I was sure the window pane made it hard to spot me in my –compared to the outside- rather dusky kitchen.
Another bird –a pigeon, if my rather amateurish ornithology-skills weren’t mistaken- launched into a soft landing at the edge of the birdbath – and promptly was hit by a yellow claw clenched to a fist, sending the poor bird flying a couple of feet backwards before it caught itself mid-air and took flight with a tirade of appalled twittering.
“And don’t come back!” Gilda shouted after the pigeon, “This is my birdbath! Mine alone!” she threateningly pointed an outstretched claw at the fleeing bird, her eyes tracing it as it passed through my garden, made a turn around a tree – and flew right past my kitchen window.
My brain told me to step back and out of sight, but before my feet could react, it was too late.
She had spotted me.
The world around us seemed to come to a halt as we stared at each other – she was still sitting in her watchdog-like position in the middle of a birdbath; her tail and most of her flank were soaked with presumably cold water, but if she cared at all she didn’t let it show.
Eyes wide, pupils barely larger than pinheads, she stared at me.
It was that stare. That grim stare only Gilda could have, and only if she was really, really angry.
For a moment I felt legitimately terrified – sure, I had known her for a couple of years, and I knew that, while she tended to be a little … wayward from time to time, she was mostly harmless. That is, as long as nobody got on her bad side.
However, in this moment, looking at her face, it felt like she would come crashing through the window and go at my throat any second now just because I was looking funny at her.
Something told me that I should go outside and talk to her – after all, this might have just been a big misunderstanding and she had a perfectly good reason to occupy my birdbath and attack any incoming challengers. However, I honestly didn’t know what to say. What did one say to a friend when she had turned into a pigeon-punching birdbath-occupant?
Well, it seemed I wouldn’t find out this day. Before I could think any further, Gilda spread out both of her wings, shot up, took to the air, and was out of my line of sight in not even two seconds.
Shaking my head, I shrugged and stepped back from the window. This first day of spring sure was taking a turn to the weird.
The rest of the afternoon passed without any noticeable events. Knowing that she would come back eventually –and that she was a free griffon and thus was allowed to come and go as she pleases, anyway- I took her sudden disappearing rather calmly.
Even though I still had no idea what had gotten into her earlier this day. I was fairly sure her behavior was somehow related to the first signs of spring starting to show up around us, since she had been acting a little strangely during that time of the year for the past couple of years, but never before had I seen her change this drastically.
Or maybe I should have just checked the expiration date of the fish she had had for dinner last night.
Either way, I was sure that her behavior –while being a little strange to look at and not necessarily good for the local fauna in my garden- was only temporary, and that she would be her old self again in a few days.
I was standing in the kitchen again, preparing dinner, when the sound of my apartment door getting opened made me look up. Through the door came a rather unkempt, ruffled-up, and grim-looking version of the griffin I had seen earlier this day.
She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look up at all. Keeping her look focused on the ground in front of her claws, she stomped into the hallway, past me, and right into her bedroom, closing the door behind herself with a loud thud.
I looked at the closed door for a second, then shrugged and returned to preparing dinner – scrambled eggs for me, rare steak for her, as per usual.
I knew she would get hungry eventually.
A few minutes later I was sitting at the kitchen table, stirring in the yellowish goo on my plate before looking up where Gilda was sitting opposite to me, holding her steak in her claws and struggling to chew on the leathery piece of meat.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she was uncomfortable sitting here – that she would have rather just grabbed the steak and disappeared in her room again instead of sitting in our kitchen and enduring my questioning look.
However, there was, and had never been, a way to talk yourself out of dinner, and both of us knew it. Dinner meant eating together at the table, no matter what.
“So…” I sat up after a long period of silence, having finally built up enough courage to ask what had to be asked, “What was that earlier today?”
“None of your business, dweeb.” Gilda grunted back without looking at me.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I continued with a chuckle, ignoring her comment, “I don’t mind you protecting our house from intruders, but those poor pigeons didn’t seem like too much of a threat to me.”
“I said it’s none of your business!” she replied, her voice sharper this time.
“Maybe you were just feeling threatened by them.” I continued with a half-serious voice, “I’ve heard that fights for territory are a common sight between … you know,” Once again I chuckled, “’Creatures of the sky’.”
That did it. She let go of the steak, planted herself on her chair, looked at me with a blood-freezing stare and hissed, “Are you comparing me to a freaking bird!?”
“Maybe…” I said with a teasing grin, pointing at her fluffed-up chest, “I mean, looking at the way you’re ruffling up your feathers, I’d like to believe you’re more bird than cat at the moment.”
“I’m a griffin!” she shouted, furiously jumping up from her chair and fluffing up her feathers even more, “Not a cat, not a damned bird!” I replied nothing, just looking at her with an amused smirk, “And you stop staring at me like that!” she shouted at me, an intense blush making itself noticeable on her face, “I’m not your damned pet!”
“No need to tell me.” I replied, still grinning as I continued to stir in the goop on my plate, “A pet would have already gotten a treatment with the spray bottle for scaring away the birds.”
Gilda stared at me – a stare that, I was sure, would have caused me to run away and hide in the next best cave had I been a small critter. Then, without another word, she snorted and stomped past me, right back into her room.
“What about your steak?” I asked over my shoulder just before she closed the door behind herself.
“I’m not hungry anymore!” she shouted back, shoving the door close.
“Okay then.” I said sweetly, shrugging, “I’ll just throw it out into the garden. I suppose the pigeons must be hungry after being expelled from their home.”
The angry grunt I received as a reply confirmed that I could indeed get rid of the half-eaten steak. It also assured me that I wouldn’t get to see Gilda again until the next morning.
I remained seated in my chair, looking at her plate, then at the door that led into her room as I thought about her strange behavior - she normally wasn’t this easy to upset, and why she had fluffed up her feathers like a lovelorn peacock while talking to me was beyond me as well.
My look wandered over to the calendar hanging on the wall opposite to the dinner table, indicating that it was indeed still early March. I looked back at the half-eaten steak, and the gears in my head started to turn.
The next day I got home from work a little earlier than usual – there was more than enough work to do, but I wanted to make sure to get home before Gilda – just in case.
I let out a weak sigh as I walked up the driveway. Gilda normally wasn’t at home at this time of the day – I was at work, and she didn’t like being alone, so she would normally just fly or walk around the city and do … something. She had never told me what exactly she was doing when she wasn’t home, but she had never cared to inform me, and I had always found it kind of rude to ask.
I stopped in front of the front door, and was surprised to see a small white envelope sitting on the doorknob. Curiously, I opened it and pulled out a handwritten piece of paper.
Dear Neighbor,
It has come to my attention that your … cat-bird-thing has repeatedly trespassed onto my property during the past days. I have personally observed it straying around my aviary, staring at my canary birds with a lusty glare, and performing something that looked like a strange kind of mating dance in front of them.
I do not know, neither do I care where this creature comes from, but I must ask you to keep it under control more. Should incidents like these happen again, I am going to see myself forced to take legal steps.
Sincerely,
Janine Cobsworth, your neighbor.
I stared at the paper for a few moments, reading it a second time to fully understand it. Then, as unfitting as it may seem, a grin crept onto my face. I had to control myself not to laugh out loud as I tried to imagine just what the old lady had observed in her garden. I had known Gilda for a couple of years by then, but never, never ever, had I seen her ‘dance’, especially not to canary birds.
I let out a sigh as I caught my breath again. So this was what she was doing when I wasn’t home – spring sure was making itself noticeable.
Leaning against the door, I reflected for a moment.
I was sure that I wouldn’t have to fear anything coming from my neighbor – she was a classical example of a barking dog that didn’t bite, so as long as she kept on throwing around big words and threatening me with lawsuits, I was confident that she wouldn’t actually take any legal steps against me.
Besides, a quick internet research at work had confirmed that whatever crazed spring-phase Gilda must be going through right now shouldn’t last longer than a week, so the risk of her ‘trespassing to perform mating dances’ again was considerably low.
All the same, I couldn’t help but to wonder just how much of a bird-brain she really had become during the last couple of days.
Fighting other birds? Check.
Fluffing up her feathers to impress me? Check.
“What other things do birds normally do?” I muttered to myself, reflecting.
A few more things came to my mind, and slowly, a malicious grin crept onto my face, and a part of my mind started coming up with ideas the voice of maturity and reason in my head didn’t like at all.
Gilda came back home a few hours later. Launching into a soft landing on the sidewalk, she stretched out her wings, hovering above the ground for a second before her claws and talons finally touched ground.
Nothing seemed off about her behavior as she –cool as ever- stepped through the gate in the fence that limited my property, then headed for the entrance door before stopping abruptly, her head tilted downwards; look focused on the walkway that led up to my house.
I had to fight with myself not to snicker as I watched how her eyes widened as she recognized the variation of grains that were spread out all across the walkway, and I could literally hear her mouth watering.
Her look shot to the side, and for a moment I thought she had seen me cowering behind the small bush and grinning like an idiot, but then her head shot to the other side, and with a speed I had never seen her use before, her head shot down, her beak picking up some of the bird food before her head shot back up again and she chewed and swallowed hastily.
I adjusted my seating position, making sure the camera in my hand wouldn’t miss one second of the show as she once again made sure nobody was watching her and picked up the next bit of food from the ground. I could have sworn I heard a satisfied cluck coming from her direction as she swallowed once again.
She repeated the process a few more times until the walkway was mostly devoid of its contents and she was standing in front of the entrance door to my house. Then, and only then, came other birds who landed on the walkway and gathered up the leftover grains – I could only imagine what Gilda must have done to assert her position as the birds’ alpha leader.
I felt my pulse speed up slightly as I waited for her to open the door and step inside – only when she had passed the door did I step out of my hideout and sneaked over the walkway as fast as possible without getting noticed by her.
It seemed I had arrived just in time – she had spotted the big mirror I had positioned in our hallway right opposite the door, and had reacted exactly how I had expected her to react.
I stopped in front of the open door to catch her staring at her reflection, her look similar to that she had after she had spotted me watching her the day before.
She turned her head to the side, eyeing her reflection first with her left eye, then with her right eye. “Hey!” she shouted at the griffin in the mirror, “What are you looking at, huh?”
I suppressed a giggle, reaching my camera through the door to make sure it would film every second of this comedy gold.
“Think you can make fun of me, huh?” Gilda continued to snarl at herself, “Never seen a griffin before?”
A second of silence passed, Gilda and mirror-Gilda giving each other death-stares, waiting for the other to back off.
“I’ll give you one warning,” Gilda hissed at the mirror, a threatening grin appearing on her face, “I don’t bite. I swallow in one piece.”
Her face hardened again, “Are you grinning at me!?” A furious snort escaped her beak, “Oh you better brace yourself, because I’m gonna kick your ass so badly they’re gonna have to-“
She was cut off by me stumbling through the door, camera raised and still recording, tears in my eyes, choking on my own laughter. “Bravo!” I barely managed to shout over my own laughter, “That was … that was priceless!”
Gilda turned around, raising her head to look up at me. Her face was annoyed – she wasn’t angry per se, but from the one cocked eyebrow, I could tell she still hadn’t quite understood what was going on.
I finished recording and placed the camera on a nearby shelf, wiping away a tear of joy, “That was … pure entertainment gold.”
Slowly, Gilda seemed to understand what had just happened – and what I had done with the camera.
Her eyes widened, pupils shrinking abruptly.
It was that stare.
Slowly, my laughter ceased.
“Oh crap…”
In the end, I wasn’t entirely sure if that whole thing had been worth it or not.
Gilda had become her normal self again after only a few more days. Fighting her own reflection or eating bird food off the ground now was something she wouldn’t do to save her life, and she had sworn that she’d gut me if I would ever film her doing this again.
As for me, her assault in our hallway had gained me a few bruises and a black eye – nothing to be worried about, and not worth mentioning, given how funny it bad been for me to watch her.
Her second assault, however, which had followed a few days later after a short visit to the internet, had left me with a few deep scratches on my face and neck, a sprained arm, and another black eye.
Still, 500,000 clicks on the video ‘A Day in the Life of a Cat-bird’ did seem to make up for the one or other bruise, no matter how bad it may have hurt at first.
Besides, there was always going to be another spring next year.
