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Animal Neighbors

© Joy Butler

I decided to take a different approach with my article this month. Summer is bearing down with no mercy in south Texas and it's a time for 'kicking back' and relaxing, a time when the outdoors feel good. It's a time to spend less time in front of the computer and to absorb the sun's life-giving warmth. In fact, I'm sitting outside under trees in the sun-dappled shade, sipping a blueberry smoothie, and writing this the old-fashioned way -- with pen and paper. I hope you'll pull up a patio chair and join me.

I'm discovering a whole other community out here -- a wonderful community that belongs to all the animals who inhabit the trees and grasses just outside my door. Resting in the wagonwheel swing, I listen to their beautiful music. The locusts' lazy 'chirr' provides a constant background to the mourning doves' soft coos and the mockingbirds' unmistakable song. Interjected, occasionally, into the music, like the crash of a cymbal, is the sharp cry of a blue jay. Flashing bright color through the dense foliage, he observes me from high above.

A few feet away near the corner of the patio, the big cedar seems alive with chirps and chatters of dozens of little brown sparrows. They flit from limb to limb, to the ground to hop on stiff legs, and then back again to the cedar. Occasionally a couple engages in a quick spat at the feeder. I don't know their criteria, but it somehow seems important to them that they select just the right morsel of food. Much like me when I'm grocery shopping.

A bright green lizard creeps along the porch rail, pausing occasionally to do a "pushup" and puff out his orange throat. The neighbor's white poodle emerges from his doggy door, sniffs the air and then the ground, searching for just the right spot to relieve himself. He stretches out in the sun, but only for a moment before the heat becomes uncomfortable, and then disappears back through his doggy door to air conditioned coolness.

Several brown bees pick and choose from honeysuckle and morning glory blossoms. Two black and yellow butterflies flit through the yard and then swoop out of sight above the house. I don't know exactly what kind they are, but it doesn't matter. I'm just enjoying my visit in their world, appreciating their freedom, their activities, and what's important to them.

A red wasp, hovering and dancing in the air, finally lands on the birdbath to ease down for a drink at the waterline. A blackbird silently picks through the grass about twenty feet away. His glossy feathers reflect an almost purple shine. He cocks his head, and beady, yellow eyes watch me with suspicion. I know that he is hot because his beak is partially open, panting.

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