The gray winter light coming through the windows perfectly matched my computer monitor. Grays that seem to last forever — to linger through March, which is, by any measure, aside from time, the longest month of the year.

But a flicker of color stole my eyes away from the screen and in that gray light, I saw two of the only birds that I can identify with any sense of authority. There on the still-dormant limbs of a lilac tree were a red-breasted robin and a blue jay. Their feathers were so bright against the wintery sky, like the first drops of paint on a canvas, hints of the expanse of colors of spring and summer to come.

As I watched them flit from limb to limb, my fingers still hovering over the middle row of computer keys, something else slowly filtered into my consciousness. The air, stale and dead from the long winter, was filled with chirps and songs. The sounds came from every direction, filling the pseudo-cheeriness of the kitchen and infiltrating the shadows of the sunroom that had seen neither sun nor inhabitant in months.

George, our yellow lab/golden retriever perpetual puppy, is now going crazy. He runs from room to room, jumping on the wicker loveseat to get closer to the long windows in the sunroom, and then back off through the kitchen to head to the back door. He runs this route countless times with his tail wagging furiously behind him. He knew well before I did that something special was happening.

I heaved my ever-growing girth out of the comfy computer chair and followed George from the den, through the kitchen and into the sunroom. There, on nearly every branch of the rows of lilacs trees, were red-breasted robins. Some were even perched on the branches that rub directly against the windows. I found myself as excited as the dog, wanting to see them all at once, wondering where my camera was or whether it was even possible to capture such a moment in its entirety. Surely, it was impossible — the birds were everywhere! One angle could never do justice to this singing, joyful flock of spring forbearers.

Knowing nothing about birds, I have no clue if this is normal March behavior for them.
Have they always flocked to my backyard and I’ve just never noticed? This year is special in so many ways, most notably with the expectation of our first child. Perhaps they don’t come every year. Perhaps they think this year is special too and wanted to share that with me. (Perhaps these are the delusions they warn pregnant women about.)

I watched the birds with joy for several minutes as they filled the towering walnut tree that Brian curses every fall when the nuts stain our driveway. I watched them as they peeked their heads into the birdhouse my grandfather built and I hung randomly on the corner of the garage. I watched as they landed softly on the snow and searched for food.

I still don’t know what possessed me at that point — flat in the middle of my peaceful commune with nature — Perhaps I thought they could all be friends. Perhaps it was a perverse desire to see them scatter to the skies in a brilliance of scarlet feathers. If that was indeed the case, both dog and owner were woefully disappointed.

George ran from the back door into the back yard, prancing and jumping as if he could possibly reach them. He attacked the walnut tree with ferocity and charged the low-lying lilac limbs with a distinct glimmer in his eye.

But the birds didn’t scatter. They moved to higher branches and showed George exactly how they felt about his interruption of their day. A shower fell from the upper branches of the trees and my frolicking pup was inundated by gray and black bullets. There was no escape. The winter landscape offered no shelter. He was coated with the just retribution of birds whose job it is to foretell spring.

I, too, paid the price for my lack of respect for the robins’ beauty and grace. Instead of silently reveling in the sounds and sights of the birds, instead of honoring their visit for the gift that it was, I spent the next hour washing bird poop out of the coat of a shame-faced dog. By the time we were finished, the birds were gone.