My Little Songbird

I've discovered that one of the little bird who eats the sunflower seeds from my feeder has made his home in our apple tree. Sometimes when I'm eating breakfast, I'll notice that he's perched on a branch, watching me with his cocked head, tweeting every once in a while. I always know what it means: "Excuse me, don't mean to bother you during breakfast, but would you mind putting out some fresh seeds?" (I always imagine him with an english accent, isn't that funny?) Ofcourse I always get up and head to the kitchen window, and he swoops down and waits, balancing on the rose bush while I faithfully spread seeds over the bottom of the feeder. I read something in a Barbara Webster book which I found so sweet:
"Still unexplained is the coin we found one morning in the bird feeder. Was it meant to be a tip? Has anyone else ever been tipped by birds? A battered, dirty quarter, it looked as though it had been passed around from beak to beak."
Anyone who feeds birds knows that feeling of connection and commeraderie one has when your little neighbors depend on you and give you meek glances of gratitude. Songbirds are such shy, benevolent beings. At the local cafe, dozens of finches prance about the courtyard, dining on crumbs. A friend of mine noted, as we tossed tiny tidbits, that when a finch took a crumb from you, it would make a squeak before fluttering away. "They always say thank you," my friend said.