Harbingers of Love

Flocks of peach-faced love birds fill the tree canopies around my neighborhood, but  only a pair or two ever visit the mesquite tree in my front yard.

Until yesterday. I was packaging up my submission to a fiction contest, coincidentally called  “Looking for Love,” when I heard the squeaking cries. They have a distinct voice, a bit nagging and insistent, like bickering old married couples. I took their arrival as a good sign, seeing as they chose to grace my yard after the summer hiatus on the very day I was sending out my little love tale (okay, so it’s 80,000 words).

This morning, a whole flock is squabbling away in the canopy. I counted over a dozen. This seems to be what birder types do, count them. Or, in my case, people with an obsessive tendency to count everything. Numbers matter to me, even if I’m not very good with them. They matter with birds too, for some reason. I can hear them squawking now. Maybe they have the right idea, just hang out in a tree all day long, singing the praises of love…Saves on postage, anyhow.