SERENDIPITY PHOTO PROMPT 2015 #12 – EARLY

Wednesday – July 1, 2015

It’s Frisbee Wednesday again. The world has turned. Springtime ended. It’s summer! If you are anywhere in the northern hemisphere, you are no doubt feeling the pressure to have fun. To leap out of bed to greet the sun. Romp on the beach. Burn meat on a grill. Drive a thousand miles. Climb a mountain.

Do something. Earn some bragging rights before it’s too late. Don’t forget the camera.

GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE

I have an ambivalent relationship with “early.”

I love sunrise. First light. The glistening of light on leaf and grass. The glow of dawn. A flight of birds across a pristine beach.

I would merely prefer that it happen later. Like around ten. After I’ve had a chance to have some coffee, catch my breath. Focus my eyes.

Did you know you can say “good morning” to your computer and it will say “good morning” in return? You can do it and it’s easier than you think. Most newer computers and tablets (and telephones) will happily burble to you any old time of day. I have carefully avoided activating any computer voices.

I can barely bring myself to be polite to the dogs in the morning. They are wildly enthusiastic, but know better than to bark at me. The stand in the kitchen doorway huffing, puffing, wagging, and dancing. In silence. Because a biscuit is coming, a biscuit is coming. Unless they bark at mom. If they are noisy, mom will put her four-footed pals outside until she gets her cup of coffee.

To have my computer jabbering at me would put me over the edge.

I can prevent my computers from babbling, but there’s nothing I can do about the birds. Birdsong is beautiful (sometimes). Under the right circumstances. The problem is that birds sing at ungodly hours. In particular, the little Carolina Wren who has taken up residence in our back forty.

He sings so piercingly loud and so early, it wakes me out of a dead sleep.

“What? What?” I cry, but it is only the bird. Such a little bird. Such a big voice. What an amazing decibel level!

I’m proud of these pictures because these wrens have a serious case of ADD. They are never still for more than a nanosecond, so getting a picture of one represents a personal best.

CALL OF THE WILD

When I was a kid, my bedroom adjoined the roof of the “playroom” on the ground floor. It was right next to my window. A broad expanse of nearly flat asphalt tiles, it became — for reasons I’m sure someone could explain, but no one ever has  — the battlefield of an ongoing territorial dispute between the crows and the squirrels.

They bickered and quarreled at the top of their obnoxious voices. They didn’t care it was not their property. Nor did it actually matter who (if anyone) won the battle.

It was a bloodless war, characterized by sound and fury. Signifying nothing. Every morning, year round, the grey squirrels and the black fish crows went claw to foot for domination of my roof.

Chattering and squawking, they would start before dawn and continue until I found myself pounding my tiny fists on the glass and screaming ‘GO AWAY, GO AWAY.’

They never quit. My mother was unsympathetic, though nothing would get her out of bed before mid morning.

Even coffee couldn’t make her cheerful in the morning. It merely woke her up. Jumpy and grumpy. Not a morning person. It seems I have become remarkably like her in ways I never expected.

Now, though, I keep a camera — sometimes several — on my jewelry chest near the accessible window in the bathroom. When my body tells me to get up, I can turn a necessity into an opportunity by snapping sunrise and early bird photographs. Then, I pull the shade down and climb back into bed.

I hardly break my sleep rhythm. Until the phone rings …

Categories: #Birds, #Photography, Humor, Sunrise

Tags: #Photography, anecdote, birds, birdsong, Dawn, humor, morning, Serendipity Photo and Story Challenge, sunrise