Vendor Writing

My Friends the Birds

By Pedro L.

I did a terrible thing to a bird when I was little. I shot him with a BB. I shot him in the eye. I was probably about eight, nine years old. That made me sad that I did that. I feel like taking care of the birds at my spot is like redemption. I love birds.

I like the cardinals, and the big birds in Florida, they’re white with the real long neck. I don’t know what you call that. In Florida, I would see the birds take a piece of bread and dip it in the water before eating it. That was real weird.

Early in the morning, like 7:30 in the morning, I whistle, thinking that they might hear me. Then I put the food out. And they come! I do that in the afternoons too. They know the times too, because they come at those times. Now that I’m not out there, I’m worried about them.

There’s two cardinals. I lay food out and there’s a brown bird and a gray bird that wants to chase all the other birds away. So I put food at different spots so the other birds can get it.

The cardinal goes up on a high post and makes this weird chirping noise, letting the other birds know that there’s food there. It’s a loud, piercing noise.

They like cheese crackers and peanut butter crackers. They do not like Craisins. I put them on the wall there, and they didn’t touch them. They like peanuts. They do like regular raisins. One other thing they don’t like is cookies, like Oreo cookies. They did not eat the Oreo cookies. They always like bread. I try different things to feed them.

You know how people say that when you eat peanut butter you can’t whistle? I always wondered about the birds, if they can whistle when they eat peanut butter.

I was wondering, is it the same birds that come all the time? Where do they go? Do they leave and go to other states?

I was told that whenever cardinals come by you, that’s a loved one watching over you. I believe that. Cardinals come by me all the time. And that’s very rare I think. I’ve never heard anybody say that cardinals come by them every day. That’s why I believe that somebody’s watching over me.

I used to put the food on the ground, but the rats would come. So now I put it on top of the brick wall, and any time a cardinal comes by and my customers come by, I point to the cardinal. So they can see it too.

Where I’m staying at The Salvation Army I heard a cardinal the other day, but I didn’t see him. There’s big black birds that come by, and they want to eat up all the food. They won’t let anybody have none. I try to shoo them away a little bit. After they get food I say, “don’t be greedy!”