Tweety

You are not going to believe this...

Tonight's dinner involved grilling and I wanted to get the fire started before Doug came home. That was a problem since Lila was awake and I wasn't comfortable leaving her unattended in the house that long. So I took all the grilling goods out there and plopped Lila on a blanket with a couple of toys (out of the range of the heat and any possible jets of fire).

As I went about my fire starting activities, I noticed there was a bird chirping and flitting around near us. Very near us. Right after I noticed this, it buzzed my head! This was, obviously, very strange, but I was preoccupied by what I was doing. I turned around a minute later to check the location of the Crazy Bird and -- this is great -- it was on top of Lila's head!!!

It is an adolescent male Cardinal - still kind of scraggly looking because he's only just lost his fluff and started growing his red feathers. As I stood there, shocked, he flew down from her head onto the blanket and started hopping around. He then flew back up onto Lila's head and she decided she really didn't care for that. I tried putting my hand in front of him and he stepped onto it!

So we sat out there for quite a while, letting Tweety (i know it's not original, but it seemed appropriate) fly between my head and shoulder, and the surrounding furniture and bushes. Thankfully, Doug came home during this and went in for the camera and some bread. As you can see below, we got some great photos of him. We even put him back on Lila's head long enough to get some photos.

Now we have a new friend... or maybe stalker would be a better description. I went outside several times as I was cooking dinner and every time I went out he'd come flying over and land on me. Once, he landed on the handle of the spatula I was holding and started trying to pull the thin leather strap off the end of it. He does the same thing with Lila and Doug and it's driving the cats crazy!

OH! I forgot one detail: When Tweety landed on my shoulder the first time, he tried to bite the mole off the side of my neck! I have to admit, it does look like a big juicy bug. Still, I had to discourage him from doing that again because it didn't feel very good! Aside from that, he's been very friendly. I was worried at first that he was going to bite one of us.

And I'm quite sad that Lila doesn't like him. In fact, she's totally spooked by him. Doug went outside with her and the bird came again and landed on her head (he *really* likes Lila) and she started getting upset. So we moved him to Doug's shoulder where she could see and touch him if she wanted, but she just wanted to get away from him. Doug had to take her back inside though because Tweety really wanted to be on her head! Funny bird!