Birdcall
Discussion points for kids:
- If you could be a bird, what kind of bird would you want to be? Why would you want to be that kind?
- What kinds of sounds do birds make?
- What do you think birds are saying when they make those sounds?
- What do you think this room would be like if you were the size of a bird? What would you want to play with or do?
- Are there any other places you would want to visit here or anywhere else if you were a bird?
On hot summer days, one of Gavin’s favorite things to do after supper is take a popsicle out to the backyard and
eat it while standing on the lawn. (He doesn’t usually sit because in summer the grass is dry and pokes his legs, and he likes to walk around as he eats to look for insects and interesting sticks).
Today after supper, when he was on the left side of the lawn eating an Iron Man® Popsicle®, he heard a loud bird call that sounded like "ur-ee, ur-ee, ur-ee." He heard other bird songs and wondered if the one that had made the ur-ee sound was still in the trees. He imitated the birdcall and heard the bird again. He tried this three more times, and each time the bird called back to him. Gavin realized that he and the bird were having a conversation.
Gavin wonders what the bird thinks he is saying, maybe "I am a penguin" or "Green raindrops fly sideways"? What is the bird saying in reply?
Gavin sees the bird he was talking to hop down on the lower branch of a maple tree next to him. Its back is light gray with black on the edges and tips of its feathers, and its chin and belly are white. As happens sometimes, especially in stories that are made up, the bird makes a garbling oo-eek, oo-eek, oo-eek sound that Gavin understands means ‘I like you. Let’s be friends. What’s your name?’ Gavin isn’t used to speaking to birds so he isn’t sure what to do. He says, “I’m Gavin. Nice to meet you,” but the bird only cocks its head.
Gavin decides that he should think what he wants to say and then make a sound like a bird and hope that it translates correctly. Luckily, his mom taught him to whistle two weeks ago and he’s been practicing. He whistles hoo hoo hoo hee hoo, hee hee hee hee, hoo hoo, which in his mind means, "I’m Gavin. Nice to meet you. What should we do?" It works! The bird replies, 'Nice to meet you. What should we do?'
What should Gavin suggest that they do?
Gavin suggests that they fly around the neighborhood. The bird (who it turns out is a boy bird) says it’s a fun idea since flying is his second favorite thing to do after singing. The bird flies up into the sky. Gavin calls out to the bird to come back. The bird perches on the branch again and Gavin explains that he doesn’t know how to fly.
"Do you remember how your parents taught you?" asks the bird.
"My parents never showed me how to fly," says Gavin.
The bird cocks his head. "Did they teach you how to walk?"
"Yes, but I was little so I don’t remember it."
"Maybe they taught you how to fly, too, and you just don’t remember it."
Gavin thinks about this. "But they can’t fly. If they could fly, wouldn’t they be doing it?"
"I don’t know. People do things I don’t understand, so they might also not be doing things that I don’t understand."
Gavin looks around the yard. "And I don’t have anything I could use to fly, like a really big balloon."
"Have you ever dreamt you were flying?" asked the bird.
"Yes."
"Then you did it! That’s a relief. So fly like that."
The bird flies up and around to the front of the house, and perches on a telephone wire. Gavin closes his eyes and imagines that he’s sleeping and dreaming about flying. In his mind, he flies up and sits next to his bird friend. He opens his eyes and finds that he’s sitting on the wire. He can’t see his arms and legs so he figures that his body must be small now like a bird’s.
"Cool!" he says to his friend. "How’d I do that?"
"This is one of my regular spots. I come here in the morning before you walk to the bus stop."
"You do? You see me every day? I haven’t seen you."
"Maybe you heard me."
"What do you sound like when I’m walking to the bus stop?"
The bird opens his beak and sings. The feathers on his neck move up and down, and he darts his head to look around them. He makes many bird sounds, with twitters and squawks and tweets and wheent wheent wheent noises.
"You make all those sounds? That’s a lot!"
"I’m good with languages. I learn quickly. Listen to this one." The bird sings the sounds of car alarm: Whoop whoop whoop whoop. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Whoop whoop whoop whoop. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. A man coming out of his house stops to look at the cars parked on the street. The bird finishes his song with a "bleep" sound like the alarm turning off. The man shakes his head and locks his door.
"Can I ask you something?" says Gavin.
What does Gavin ask the bird?
"Certainly."
"What do you eat?"
"Good point! I’m hungry. Follow me." The bird flies away from the telephone wire and Gavin, who looks like a mockingbird like his friend, follows behind. They fly fast past houses and just when it seems the bird will land on a tree, it swerves and flies up to the top of the highest tip of it. As Gavin lands next to him, it calls out, "Who’s there? Who’s there? Who’s there?" The bird looks around and listens to the other birds responding from their positions. He hops down to a lower branch and repeats the call, adding, "Can we eat? Can we eat? Can we eat?" He tells Gavin, "Let’s go closer."
The birds land on top of a red patio umbrella four houses away from Gavin’s. This house has three birdfeeders in the backyard: one that’s a long cylinder, one shaped like a green wooden house, and a third that’s a white and blue lighthouse. The bird looks around quickly to see who else is nearby. Each feeder has multiple birds hopping underneath it to pick up the food that fell or flying back and forth from it to eat from the openings. "This is a good spot if you don’t mind the crowd."
"This is where you eat?" Gavin asks.
"Not all the time. We call this convenience food. You have to watch out for squirrels." As the bird says this, a red squirrel jumps onto the long feeder, which starts to swing and scares away the birds. The squirrel clambers around the feeder to dig out seed. "I also eat insects and berries, and worms. I pick those myself. After the grass is cut and after the rain are the best times."
Gavin says, "The berries sound good but not the insects and worms."
"Perfect for birds. Perfect for beaks. Let’s eat!"
The bird friends fly over to the green wooden house feeder and land on its porch. It has a small hole where a bird can reach in to eat seed.
"Go ahead," Gavin says.
"Go ahead," the bird repeats.
"You can go first."
"You can go first," the bird repeats.
Gavin tries lifting up his leg to pick up a seed like how he usually eats with his hand. He realizes that this won’t work so he stretches his neck and picks up a round, yellow seed with his beak. He eats the seed, crunch crunch crunch. "It’s good!"
The bird friends eat seeds until their stomachs are full and then stop at the birdbath for a drink and quick wash.
The bird says, "Guess what I do after I eat."
"Chase animals? Play tag in the trees?"
"I take a nap!" says the bird. "This way." He flies over to Gavin’s family yard and lands on a branch about Gavin’s mom’s height from the ground that has a nest. Gavin notices that the nest is made from twigs and what looks like a purple ribbon from one of his birthday balloons and a piece of fabric from an old chair his dad put out for trash pickup a month ago.
"Is this your home?" he asks the bird.
"It’s all our home but this is where we sit when we have eggs. Otherwise, the eggs would roll off the branches, you know."
"Is that brown fuzzy piece from our chair?"
"Was your chair outside of your nest?" asks the bird. "I’ve never been inside your nest."
"You mean my house? It was outside when it was going to be thrown away."
"Then it probably is! How exciting." The bird fluffs his feathers and settles his head close to his body to sleep. He feels the branch vibrating so he stretches out his head and looks around. He sees a squirrel jumping from a higher branch to another tree. He fluffs up again and sleeps. Another bird calls loudly from the next tree and he puts up his head again and looks around, and then goes back to sleep. Gavin laughs, which comes out like a twitter.
The bird opens his eyes and hops around the branch, looking down toward the ground. “Look out!” he says and quickly flies past Gavin and around the tree, making shrill sounds as he goes. Gavin flies off the tree and sees that the bird has found a snake that was climbing up the tree trunk toward them. A flock of starlings on a house call over to the bird saying they see the snake, too. The bird swoops by the snake to scare it away from its nest. The snake realizes that all the birds and animals in the tree now know it’s there so it slides back down and drops to the grass, and slithers away. Gavin and the bird land back on a tree branch.
"Hooray!" the starlings chirp from the house, and "Well done!"
Gavin tells the bird, "You saved us!"
The 9-year-old boy who lives next door comes out into the yard. "Noisy birds!" he yells and picks up acorns and throws them at the bird and Gavin.
"Watch out!" bird squawks at Gavin. "This way!" He flies back over to the telephone wire and Gavin sits next to him there.
"It’s a lot of work being a bird," says Gavin.
"I’m used to it, I guess."
"It must not seem fair when people yell at you to be quiet or go away. It’s not like you can close the door to your bedroom like I can."
"I always wondered why your big nest has the part that covers it at the top. You’re probably worried about owls."
Gavin laughs. "The roof keeps out the rain."
"But you have rain inside don't you? I’ve seen it."
Gavin thinks about it. "That must have been the shower or the dish sprayer in the kitchen."
"If you block the rain, why do you bring it inside the house?"
"So only some things get wet."
"I guess you're protecting your food."
"We do wash some food, like vegetables and fruit, and put some food in water, like pasta. And we wash our clothes but other things we don’t wash, like our couches. Well, sometimes my mom takes off the cushion covers and washes them in the washing machine. But we don’t wash our computer. We do wash our dog."
“It must be more work to be a person,” says the bird. Gavin laughs.
“What else can we do? My mom is going to call me in soon to get ready for bed.”
"Okay."
Gavin and the bird fly toward Gavin’s house. Since he’s still a bird, Gavin can’t get into the house by opening the door like he usually does. He flies around to the front door in case someone left it open. It’s closed. He flies by the side door. It’s closed. He flies around to the back of the house and sees that his parents’ bedroom window, which doesn’t have a screen, is open. "This way!" Gavin calls to the bird.
They fly inside the bedroom and land on Gavin’s father’s tall dresser. Being inside his own house makes Gavin realize how small he is as a bird. He hops around on top of the dresser. His father’s coins are like stepping stones and his pen makes Gavin think of a branch. Gavin can hear that his mom started running his bath water so he chirps to the bird to follow and flies down the hallway to the bathroom.
The tub is filling and Gavin’s plastic boat is bobbing on the surface of the water. Gavin lands on it and calls out to the bird, "Look! I’m the captain!" He twitters happily as he rides the waves until the boat gets close to the faucet and he starts to get splashed. He flutters and flies away to the towel bar. Bird is standing on top of the light fixture over the bathroom sink.
"Gavin? Are you up here?" his mom calls as she comes up the stairs. Gavin tries to say that he’s in the bathroom but what comes out is a chirping sound. "What’s that sound?" His mom looks in the bathroom. "Birds!" she yells and runs out.
"She didn’t even recognize me!" Gavin calls happily. "She’s probably going outside to look for me to tell me about us."
"Maybe we should leave," says the bird. "She might be worried if she can’t find you."
"The mirror! I can see what I look like." Gavin flies over to the sink to look at himself. As he’s flying, his mother comes back into the bathroom with a broom.
"Shoo! Fly away!" she says as she waves the broom at them. Gavin and the bird get scared and fly down the hallway.
The bird and Gavin fly downstairs and go in and out of the rooms looking for a way out of the house. They hear Gavin’s mom saying, "Shoo! Shoo!" as she runs downstairs to look for the birds by the front door.
Gavin flies out of the kitchen and sees that she’s away so he flies toward the stairwell to go back to the window in his parents’ room. The bird is scared and still flying frantically around the kitchen. "This way! This way!" Gavin calls to him. "Hurry before she comes back!" The bird darts out of the kitchen, through the dining room and over to the living room. The fireplace’s glass doors are open so the bird flies into it thinking it might lead outside.
Gavin’s mom spots Gavin (the bird version) near the staircase and shouts, "Go outside!" and swings the broom at him. Gavin flies upstairs as fast as he can. He goes into his parents’ bedroom, and finding the window still open, flies out into the backyard.
Gavin lands on a lower tree branch and looks at the back of his house. The sun is setting and the windows have a yellow glow. It’s peaceful in the yard but he knows his friend is still scared inside. He hopes that the bird heard him calling to go back upstairs, and watches the bedroom window to see if he flies out. He waits. He doesn’t see the bird and worries that he’ll get hurt trying to get outside. Gavin hops down to the grass. He knows his friend needs help.
"Mom! Mom!" Gavin calls as he goes back toward the house. He tries to fly and can’t so he has to run to the side door. It’s still closed but as he goes up to it, he finds he is again a boy and can reach out his hand to turn the handle. He runs inside the house. "Mom! Mom! I’m here!"
He hears his mom call down from upstairs. "Gavin! Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I was starting to get worried." She comes downstairs.
"Where’s your broom?"
"What broom? The kitchen broom? In the kitchen."
"Mom, the bird needs help! He’s still here, isn’t he?" Gavin runs into the living room.
"What bird?" His mom follows him into the room. Gavin goes over to the fireplace. He hears a fast fluttering noise and then it stops. He hears the sound again, more loudly with some scratching, which must be from the bird’s feet. "Is something in there?" she says.
"It’s the bird, Mom! How do we get him out?"
His mom comes closer and looks inside. "It is a bird! A mockingbird. How in the world did it get in there?" Gavin’s mom leaves the room and comes back with a white sheet. She opens the window closest to the fireplace and removes the screen. A moth that had been hovering near the window flies inside the house. “I’m not sure how to do this but let’s give it a shot.” She opens the fireplace doors all the way. She unfolds the sheet and gives one end to Gavin. "I was thinking we could hold this up like a wall so the bird will go toward the window."
They stand to the side of the fireplace and hold up the sheet. The open window is just a few feet away. The bird continues to flutter around inside.
"Hmm. It’s not coming out," his mom says. "Maybe I should get the broom."
"Wait! Let me try." Gavin makes a birdcall sound.
"Where did you learn that?"
"From him." Gavin makes ur-ee, ur-ee, ur-ee sounds that he means to say, "It’s okay. The window is open for you. It’s safe to come out."
The bird turns in the direction of the sound and finds the fireplace doors open. He flies out and feels a breeze from his outside home. He goes toward the window and flies through the opening.
"Yeah!" his mom says. Gavin runs over to the window to see if he can spot the bird. "You’re a hero! How did you know it was in here?"
"We take care of each other. He’s my friend."
"You amaze me sometimes." Gavin’s mom walks over and kisses his head. "Time for bed, buddy."
They go upstairs and as he passes his parents’ bedroom, Gavin hears the bird chirping his thanks from a backyard tree.
"Oh, the window!" Gavin’s mom runs into the bedroom to close the window before another bird flies inside the house. Before the window closes, Gavin chirps in reply to his friend, "You’re welcome. Good night."
THE END
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