Highlandia House Calls

By

Porch Chronicles July 29, 2016

In the mornings after taking care of my dogs, I sit on my screen porch drinking coffee, reading great stuff written by friends and listening to the sounds of Highlandia. 

Highlandia is what I call my neighborhood. I live on Highland Avenue and my front porch is intentionally covered in vines making it my own Secret Garden. 

I love Highlandia because it has a spring fed creek running through it and it is surrounded by woods that are filled with all kinds of wildlife although the woods are being sold little by little and the trees are disappearing, but that’s for another conversation. 

Today a visitor called on me for the second day in a row. It called me out of my house or so it seemed.
I heard this unfamiliar voice yesterday and whistled a matching call from my chair on the porch just for fun. The call came back to me almost immediately then grew louder and louder as it came closer. Suddenly the call was so loud it seemed to be just on the other side of the screen. 
I rushed outside to try to see who my visitor was, but whatever it was had disappeared. 
Today as I drank my coffee on the porch it came to see me again, calling me out from just above my house. 
I ran out of the house and stood in the middle of the front yard for several minutes while a wonderful bird hovered in a small circle just over my head, barely above the tree tops. 
We called back and forth to each other for quite a while, it seemed eager to talk to me as it floated motionless above me for what seemed like forever. It was thrilling. 
No doubt, any neighbors who saw me standing in my front yard whistling a duet with a bird was wondering what the heck I was doing. 
According to my research of various birds, my new friend is a Mississippi Kite who brings a friend along with him on these house calls.
If there really are such things as animal spirits, I think someone that I lost has been visiting me for the last few days to cheer me up and tell me not to be sad. I certainly makes me happy to imagine it.