The birdhouse in my friend’s backyard invited many little birds and provided them a good meal of mixed seeds. Sipping morning coffee and watching them flutter and dance to the winds was relaxing. Those birds looked like sparrows; some were slightly bigger than humming birds and some were slightly smaller than pigeons.

The younger smaller ones were super energetic and a little rowdy. They would push other birds and then get pushed later on. The mid-sized birds seemed to have some manners so they would mind their own business. However, it was all play. I don’t know where they came from or where would they go after feeding their little tummies but as long as they stayed, they had fun.

Most birds sit on the birdhouse and munch on the seeds but some of them were happy to search for the fallen seeds on the ground and eat those away. They didn’t care about sitting on the birdhouse. At every random noise, all these birds would immediately fly away at once and come back to the birdhouse after few moments. But there was one bird, the biggest of them all; may be as big as a pigeon – that didn’t move at all. It didn’t move even for louder noises; noises that would startle us possibly.

I wondered if it was dead. I kept watching it and noticed a slight movement. It wasn’t dead after all. I wondered if this bird was the wise one and an older bird probably. May be it could differentiate between a threat and a regular random noise caused by an automobile or a passing human being talking on phone. This bird sat in the same place and looked like a parent watching over its offspring and being content. Nothing else mattered to it and no sound disturbed its stillness.

Or may be it was just deaf.