Animals sometimes act in
peculiar ways. Cats, squirrels, and birds often give me reason to consider how
odd they can be. They don’t always seem
like just dumb animals, they can seem to know more than they are given credit
for.
Our neighbors across the
street have a black and white cat. For about six months that cat sat on the
corner of our deck rail outside the front door looking in at us most
evenings. If we went to the door and
said, “Hi Kitty!, it looked us in the eye and blinked, its large round eyes
seeming full of knowledge, and continued
to sit there. We found that interesting and just a tiny bit disturbing. Some
mornings I’d look out the window and there Kitty would be perched on the hood
or roof of my daughter’s car looking at our house. Every now and then I’d come
home and find the cat curled up on the grill on the deck looking around. Occasionally it would be lying in one of our
deck chairs keeping an eye on things. If I approached, it blinked at me a couple
times before getting up and scurrying away. It doesn’t come over here as much anymore, but
we see it sitting at the end of their driveway looking up and down the street,
as you might see an old man do.
We have squirrels that climb
up the screen on one of the windows to get to the roof with a lot of noise as
their claws try to get a grip when they scrabble up the window. Sometimes they
come and sit on the same deck rail the cat sat on looking in the front door at
us. This was especially true following
our evicting a squirrel who chewed through a roof vent and screen to take up
residence in the attic. The creature sat on its perch, staring, shaking its
tail, chittering and hissing until it finally gave up and scurried away. During one rain storm it sat, tail curled up
over its head in the deluge staring at the front door crying. I admit, it made me feel a little bad but
there are plenty of trees around where it could have taken shelter. It was
weird.
We have birds who
occasionally try to build a nest under the eaves above the front window and
while attempting the impossible repeatedly fly into the window with a loud “thunk!” There are times when a small bird, like a
sparrow, lands on the deck rail across from the front door and appears to be
looking in, and occasionally lights upon the screen in the door for a few
seconds before flitting away. Sometimes
a flock of grackles descends on the yard, perching in trees and landing on the
grass searching for insects. They are
noisy and there can be so many that the yard is black with them before they
take off as one and land in the next yard.
It’s a little unnerving how they do that, more so since I repeatedly
watched “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock when I was a kid. It scared me every time, but having 3
brothers I didn’t want to be a “scaredy cat” so I bravely watched it with them. I haven’t watched that movie in years, but if
I did I’m sure it would give me bad dreams
I don’t know what makes
animals act in such mysterious ways.
Could it be they are reincarnations of people we have known? Probably it’s just one of the peculiarities
of nature. Of course, you never know.
