Our apartment in Belfast was on the ninth floor of the building. A tiny place, just snug enough for two, it was one room wide. One wall in the main living area was all window. The couch faced the window so that sitting there was like watching the city unfold on the big screen. I loved sitting on that couch. It’s where I blogged, read, paid bills, and did just about everything in the apartment but eat and sleep. I had a front row seat to the world, 135 feet above the pavement.
We saw a lot of birds. Seagulls mostly. Swooping and diving just on the other side of the glass. It was startling at first—a bird coming at you at 25 mph will wake you out of a proofreading stupor in a flash! Yet they always diverted in the nick of time.
We gradually got used to the bird traffic. It appeared to be especially heavy in the early evening. One evening, as I gazed out on my domain, I noticed two seagulls on the wall of an apartment balcony across the street. She sat contentedly on the wall; he landed next to her. She moved to the opposite end of the wall. He approached. She moved farther away. He retreated. She advanced an inch at a time until they were only a foot apart. He flew away. How coy!
I watched this avian soap opera develop across the way over several days. Often there was one bird. Sometimes two. Sometimes one would launch, as if the urge to stretch her wings was suddenly more than she could bear. Sometimes five seagulls would swoop by in formation and abruptly spiral vertically upward. But there always seemed to be one seagull on the balcony wall overlooking the flat roof of the building next to it.
One day I saw her descend to the low wall that surrounds the rooftop on three sides. She sat for hours, content to watch the world go by. Why doesn’t she leave, I wondered, fly around like the rest? And then I noticed the gravel on the rooftop moving. What? I picked up the binoculars. There were three little balls of gray fluff pecking in the gray gravel of the roof. All that time, on the balcony and roof wall below, she was watching over her brood.
I was obsessed with the baby birds. Every morning, first thing, I’d scan the rooftop for them. It worried me that there was no protective wall on the front edge of the building. They slept in a cluster of weeds at the front left corner, for Pete’s sake. If they roll over in their sleep…. Mama didn’t appear to be concerned. But she was always just a few feet away. I know how mamas think, and I’m sure her nonchalance was just a ruse to foster independence in her chicks.
This morning I said goodbye to all my birds as we vacated the apartment. I wished the babies good luck with the flying thing when it’s time. Practice beforehand, I advised, and stay away from the edge until you know you’ve got it down. And I wished Mama peace and consolation when it’s time for them to go.
