Hidden in Plain Sight

I was stretched out on the couch reading Outlive. Good book. The kind that makes you side eye your habits while you stay right where you are.

The TV was on. Not watching it. Just noise filling the room. Then I heard it. Sharp. Repeating. Not the usual birds you tune out. I looked up.

Still enough to miss what is going on.

Through the window, they were moving fast along the side of the house. Back and forth, not stopping. I pay attention to birds now. They have flown into this window more than once. Loud enough to make you look.

And then I see my husband. Outside. Pacing back and forth with a stick in his hand. I’m thinking, why he won’t he sit his ass down, somewhere, but I said nothing.

Curiosity got me, I opened the door. “What is going on?” He turned, a little out of breath. “They built a nest in the dryer vent.”

The dryer vent.

He said he already knocked it down. I looked past him. The birds were still there. Circling. Loud. Not pleased.

I asked how he even caught it. He said he had been sitting outside watching them go back and forth. Long enough to track it to the vent.

By the time I stepped all the way outside, he had finished it. Wire up. No way back in.

The birds stayed close for a minute. Then they pulled back.

Part of me felt for them. The other part knew better. A nest in a dryer vent is trouble. Heat. Lint. The kind of thing you do not ignore.

This is not our first bird situation. And every time, he notices before I do. Handles it before it turns into something bigger.

I went back inside. Sat down. Picked my book back up. Read the same page twice.

I looked out the window one more time. I felt for them. And I was thankful for him.