You already know my affinity for my feathered friends – I talk it about it enough in my blog posts. The ducks quackin’ me up as they play in the Creek, the sweet warbling on a sunny Summer day, or even the cheeping I hear up high in a tall tree on a wintry morning.  These sounds cannot help but make me feel good and I know that is all is right in my world.

This morning, with its not-quite-seasonal temps, dawned in a splash of color across the sky. I was grateful that it was not rainy like Monday morning, so I got ready quickly to scoot out the door … just in case Mother Nature changed her mind.  On cue, just like a choir serenading its congregation, the birdie babble greeted me as I walked out the door.  This time, it was coming from my neighbor Marge’s house where birds of a feather cluster around her many feeders.

And, here I am, all these hours later, still thinking about birds – in fact, I’m surrounded by them here in the kitchen. There are ducks aplenty on the corner cabinet, cardinals and blue jay trivets on the wall, mom and pop rooster grace the top of the fridge and a slew of wild ducks parade along the tip tops of the cupboards.  They are ceramic, and a little dusty … but I digress.

I am sitting at my computer and the sweet strains of Christmas music are in the background. I only wanted to hear the news – on one station was a basketball game, and soon the hubbub of still another debate took over the airwaves.  So, instead, I switched the stations, and Christmas music has filled the kitchen tonight.

Buddy, my canary, is singing to the songs – the slow ones he usually passes up and goes for a nibble of canary food, toasted bagel or lettuce, or perhaps a sip of water to wet his pipes and gear him up for the next song. I could call him Ba-ba-Buddy as he sings in harmony with Bing’s bass-baritone – personally, I think Buddy loves the birdsong in the background more than the actual crooning in “White Christmas”.

He also really gets into “Sleigh Ride” with the whinny of the horse at the very end and “The Twelve Days of Christmas” … but, after all, that’s a song mostly about his brethren.

Buddy is a bird filled with joy and he fills the kitchen with his song all day long as I tap tap tap away over here on the keyboard. If the phone rings, singing accompanies my conversation and callers cannot help but remark on how happy he is.

It was five years ago today Buddy came to this house. He was a little nervous when he first got here, probably because of the big ol’ human instead of his brothers and sisters who all shared a cage at Feed-Rite Pet Shop.  He’d plop right into his canary dish to eat, until I told him that was uncouth, and there was no one else he needed to share with.  He doesn’t always listen though as you see above.

When Buddy was first here, he used to go to sleep every night after dinner because the pet shop closed promptly, with lights out, every night at 7:00 p.m. The first few weeks, I’d look over and see heavy eyes, then soon thereafter his mop-top head was tucked underneath his wing and he was standing on one leg fast asleep.  Buddy eventually stopped going to bed with the chickens and began to enjoy his high seat on the counter where he will check out what’s happening and get into the occasional mischief, all the while being loved and spoiled like crazy.  If I leave the kitchen and walk down the hall, I am serenaded when I come back into the room again.

To me Buddy looks and acts as if he is perpetually smiling … a bird so full of joy it is spilling over and he puts me in a better frame of mind – every day, and in every way.

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. ~Maya Angelou