By Michele Miller
What’s What New Port Richey
Rain’s pitter-patter muffles the day’s start beyond the white vinyl fence where the timely slamming of car doors heralds the next shift’s arrival at the Assisted Living Facility that abuts our property.
It is a blessing for me to lay claim to the back porch as the rest of the house sleeps, including Sophie, the gray tabby cat who typically greets me at the slider, eagerly meowing for her morning brushes. She’s likely scared off by the rumbling thunder, which allows me time to sit in silence with my morning brew served up in my favorite “Bright Eyed & Bushey Tailed” mug.
I am a certified “morning person.” This is time to sit and savor. To close my eyes and get lost in thoughts in what feels, for a time, like the middle of nowhere. The serenity is jarred somewhat by the persistent, staccato chirps of a fledgling cardinal nagging its father for food.
The bright red cardinal obliges, ferrying seed from the backyard feeder to the youngster whose shivering wings are flapping in anticipation in the azalea bush. In a day or two’s time, the baby bird will master the venture from bush to feeder on its own before being unceremoniously banished by the very adult birds that hatched it.
These cardinals are a territorial lot we’ve discovered in the time they have made their home here. They are the first to arrive and the last to leave the feeder. The bosses of the rest of the backyard birds, save for the squawking black crows and the screetching red-shouldered hawk that sweeps in now and again in search of a meal, silencing the chirps, save for the bold blue jays that are prone to diving at and pecking at the predatory intruder.
These are the ways of the birding kingdom, played out in a bedroom community that day by day diminishes and disregards their woodland home – a microcosm of what could play out on a larger scale if we dared just leave a speck of it alone.
Michele Miller is the creator, editor, and content creator for the What’s What New Port Richey community website and biweekly newsletter, which has been up and running since June of 2020. Prior to that, she wrote “good news” stories, features, and columns while working as a reporter and photographer for the St. Petersburg Times/Tampa Bay Times. She resides in New Port Richey. Contact her at mmiller@whatswhatnewportrichey.com
To read more of Miller’s essays, click here.
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