The Visitors that Come Calling Everyday

A narrow ledge on the seventh floor initially seemed to me, to be too small and narrow to have any visitors of the winged kind. Used to sprawling gardens with lots of trees, the winged visitors, stray cats and the dogs, et al, were an all too common sight in our house. I will miss these visitors the most here, i thought. Oh, the pleasure of watching the winged and four legged creatures as they came calling and feeding at their whims and fancies! What a beautiful feeling it is to feel connected with Nature and all beings big and small! No such scope here, i thought...what a loss for me...If only, we could change that somehow!

And for starters, i couldn't resist a small invitation, if i may call it so! A few grains of rice the first day, to see if any small birds may, may come and take a peck of. And to think, that our very first visitor was a majestic kite which came swooping down from the adjacent building to peck at the rice. This was the first time ever a kite came calling...a shrill voice and a wingspan that almost covered the narrow corridor, almost stumping me with its size and the fact that it came to peck at the rice morsels!

And then the next day dawned and there it was, back again, calling in its shrill voice for the few morsels of rice(?!) that i would offer. And then the next day and so on...till it is almost a ritual now...and i no longer get intimidated by its size, it now appears like an overgrown kid at heart who comes calling everyday! And it set the mood rolling for the other visitors as well...the kite was followed by a couple of young crows (yes, experience has taught me how to distinguish between the young and the matured ones!) a few pigeons, a couple of parrots, the 'joy' birds, the 'seven sisters' birds and recently a young squirrel who comes running for its share of food too!

And to think that it is a narrow ledge after all....hardly any place if you ask me!

A variety of visitors come calling every day and invariably as it happens we seem to have forged an invisible bond here too...we can now clearly distinguish each of our visitors, the pigeon with the hurt leg, the one with the bruised eye...the crow who is friends with the kite but loves to scare the pigeons away! To think that all these visitors take turns to feed on that narrow ledge and drink water from the earthen pots below.

On hot days they scramble to get into the earthen pots and cool off and have now generally made themselves so comfortable almost like their second-home!

The narrow ledge seems to be hardly a deterrent to my string of visitors...And i realize, that the size of the place is a non-issue... all that matters, it seems, is that visitors should feel welcomed and invited at all times. Be it in our homes or our lives!