This happens quite often, especially as the days lengthen and the air warms.

I’ll walk outside first thing in the morning (on days when I don’t leave before dawn), and I’m greeted with a great flapping and scampering. It’s the robins and jays flying away as the door squeaks open, and the squirrels scampering up the tree as I head past them to the mailbox.

But the overall effect is one of breaking up a party. It’s like entering the room of a teenager or joining a conversation that suddenly stops as you come near. The birds and small mammals have obviously been up to something they don’t want me to share. And that’s okay. I understand, really I do!

All of this is to say that wild things have their own world, their own hearts and habits. It’s comforting to know that I don’t belong; it’s comforting to know it’s nothing personal.