Where are the Oakland birds? Do cities have birds? Pigeons, yes, but pigeons aren't robins or swallows or finches or crows, they're pigeons. They sold out for Twinkies and old sandwich bits. I grew up in a wooded area north of Seattle on Puget Sound where I remember the birds and they remember me, the BB gun kid, who, quite honestly, pretty much left them alone. But where are they around here? (insert not very learned insecticide polemic) Maybe they're in the hills, hanging out with the high end house set, distaining any intercourse with flatlanders and their pigeons. They banned DDT, after all. Pelicans came back from the grave in the 1970's, I saw one in 1976 near Mission Rock in San Francisco. He was alive, he was flying. How many birds were there in Ballard, a suburb of Seattle, when I was five, a place not unlike the area I live in now? I don't remember. As many as there are now? How many birds were there in that wooded area north of Seattle? I remember them, but how many? You don't necessarily count when you're ten. Nobody was worried about DDT. No parrots landing on your arm looking for sunflower seeds, of course, but there were robins, hummingbirds, woodpeckers and seagulls and once, over near Eric's, a bluejay who was obviously just passing through.

Actually, I seem to recall something about the number of cats that now live in our cities. The number of hungry cats foraging for the litter in the basement behind the couch. Birds make good dinners. So maybe I'll stop. Wuss is even now out on the balcony staring intently at something in the Magnolia tree. I just heard a "chirp!"