Catbird Run-in

The movement of brief bird encounters

Oct 16, 2024

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And now, here’s a little ditty about a bird I met on my back porch about 9 years ago. She was probably a juvenile catbird—fluffier and newer to the world than the grown-up male birds in these images. Hopefully my storytelling is stronger than my bird identification. We’re going for the emotional truth of an uncanny bird encounter. Head turn. Wink. Grin.

Any which way, it’s time you met her…

A deep dive into the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds

Etta launches out the back door on her leash. We are two girls on an early morning mission, giants stomping sacred ground. We almost clobber the catbird, but the bird doesn’t move.

I freeze, bringing our merry dog-walking to a halt. Etta and I hover on the landing. One step down the brick stairs sits a sleek, gray bird. It’s a mystery how the dog doesn’t see the bird. Her canine senses are tuned to other frequencies. She doesn’t womp the bird in one bite, and the bird (intact!) doesn’t flinch.

Time slows from a snail’s pace to a full stop. My limbs—deadened, daydreaming—make motions to put the dog back in the house. Stock still and unblinking, the catbird waits. Do birds have eyelids?

I kneel down. The bird’s feet face the gate, but she cranes back to clock me. Her body curves in an impossible, over-the-shoulder portrait. Long, black tail feathers end abruptly in a straight edge. Scarcely a muscle moves. I mirror the bird’s stillness.

a bird on a wood bench — Photo by Tyler Jamieson Moulton on Unsplash

I worry she is sick. I worry she is a sign. I worry I won’t understand the message. I worry I am too closed off for signs. I worry I am so open I could fly away.

We breathe and blink in the shaded sun, finding solace in this postage stamp backyard. Fenced in, enclosed in ivy, we are hidden. We two—the bird and I—are the whole world in two square feet.

Together, we wait.

Her eye—the one I can see—closes slowly, painfully. She does have an eyelid! It’s plain as day now. The edges around her eye are ancient, like the very old or the freshly born. The eye stays closed for a long time. Is it a long time? Are we still part of time?

I spiral. This could be it.

She is dying right here on the steps. These are silent death throes. What are we doing? We are inches away. I should be basking in a message about life’s brief beauty, but I am, in my mind, sneaking into the house (past the dog) to grab the camera to mark the moment.

But catbirds don’t wait for shenanigans. And that’s what pens are for, I guess, after the fact.

So here we are.

black and white bird on brown tree branch during daytime — Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash

I utter cooing comforts that don’t translate into bird. “Do you need a shoebox? A cup of water? Did you fly into a window? Are you bleeding inside? Are you dazed? Am I? What do you eat? Do you bite? Talk to me!”

In a reverie, under the spell of this 6-inch sprite, the cooing gets crazier. “Do I even have a box? Do I need gloves? Do vets take wild birds?” I think about rabies (do birds get rabies?) and I throw away the imaginary bowl after giving the bird an imaginary drink.

We are still inches away.

I ease onto my shins. The catbird’s wings shiver. Who are you? My unborn? Never born? A baby that was? A baby to be?

A bird is a bird. Let her be a bird.

But I can’t. We are face to face for a reason and I will figure this out. She is an urgent message in the form of a critically injured bird and I almost crushed her. The dog almost ate her. We hulking, unthinking giants miss all the signals.

Movement shocks the silence. Wings flutter. Tail feathers bob. The catbird’s head tips sideways, looking back like a toddler staggering into the distance, making sure I’m still looking.

I am.

She hops backwards and up a step. Closer. We are somehow closer. She tests her wings. I am not ready to let her go.

A bird is a bird. Let her be a bird.

She’s got uplift, buoyancy, the right idea. Another hop and she’s on the edge of a clay pot of purslane that I planted. These flowers close at night, and it’s still too early in the morning to open.

The bird’s wings organize. She’s lighter, looking at me. She makes as if to fly. I worry she’ll fall off the pot and onto the bricks below. She still seems hurt.

She launches into flight. Bird magic. She makes it across the postage stamp and lights onto the cross-hatched fence. She looks back at me, turning and waving her tail. She hops onto a vine and zips up and out sight.

What do you do with a morning like this?

Etta and I give it another go. As I open the gate, my friend Carrie’s car eases down the street and into view. I dance and she waves on her way to work. A quick hello and a goodbye. That’s a good sign.