THE BIRD WHISPERER

John told me not to write this because no one would believe it.  I told him I was going to write it anyway.  I have never known John to lie.  His wife and neighbors verify the story and they have pictures to prove it.  I believe it.  I have read more unusual animal stories in my time.

John’s first encounter with the dove happened on a morning in early spring.  He was sitting on his porch drinking coffee and watching some neighborhood children play.  The bird landed in the front yard and began wandering toward him.  It eventually hopped onto his shoe.  He thought the bird was either sick or retarded.  He leaned down, picked it up, and put it on the porch railing.  He got some bread and made little crumbs.  The bird ate them out of his hand.  After about 10 or 15 minutes, the bird flew away.

John switched to tortilla crumbs and kept them nearby in a bowl.  The bird began to land on John’s shoulder instead of the porch railing.  It would often walk on his shoulders from one side to the other pecking at his ears, neck and hair as it moved along.   John would eventually open the bowl of bread and put the bird on the railing.  The bird would eat and after a time it would leave. This became a morning ritual.

This was happening every morning when the bird also began appearing in the early evening.

One morning John was in the yard talking to a neighbor when there was a whir and a thump on his chest.  His neighbor stepped back and exclaimed, “What in the (expletive)?”  John took the bird in his hand and said, “It’s time to feed the falcon.”  From that point forward, he called the dove Frank the Falcon.  He took it over to the porch and fed it.

John talked to his dog and his cat so it seemed natural to begin talking to this new creature in his life.  (I am sure he made sure no one saw him talking to a wild bird.)

This is the really unbelievable part.  John admitted that he was still smoking some at the time. (He and I had discussed his smoking in a negative conversation or two, so it was not easy for him to tell me this. This is another reason I believe him.)  He kept a coffee can on the porch for cigarette butts.  He was talking to the dove and scolding it for pooping on the porch railing.  The bird stopped eating and looked around.  John said, “Don’t you even think about it.”  The bird looked at him, walked down the railing and pooped in the can.  This was the only time it did this, but it never pooped on the railing again.  I have never known John to lie.  He affirms this is the unbelievable truth.

When summer came, Frank left.

The next spring Frank was back eating on the porch railing.  The ritual continued.  Frank was there every day for 2 or 3 months.  One day it was gone and John didn’t see it again after that.  I thought perhaps John had confessed to Frank that he had been a dove hunter and Frank got mad at him.  He assures me that he never mentioned that.  Perhaps Frank was the victim of another hunter or a predator.   We will never know what happened to a friendly little bird called Frank the Falcon that bonded with a kind hearted man.