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Shelby’s coffee was getting cold on the balcony. His cigarette smouldered, unattended, in his paw. The slim orange cat was transfixed by a pair of taupe birds, pecking about down the alley below his apartment. They meandered, their heads bobbing back and forth, amongst the fast food cups and puddles in the alleyway. The birds never got too far away from one another, but other than seeming tentatively bound to each other, they did not move with any particular purpose. The cat did not hear the balcony door slide open, and back shut. He was unaware of the presence of his husband, Curt - a powerful bernese - on the balcony. Curt was used to finding Shelby transfixed by things, and he knew better than to disturb the easily-startled feline. Instead, he just sat in one of the deck chairs and waited. Curt waited. Shelby watched. The birds wandered and pecked, and wandered, and pecked. Despite Curt’s best efforts, Shelby was startled out of his trance - not by the large dog looming over him, but by the ember of his cigarette finally reaching his fur, singing it. He yowled, dropping the cigarette and scaring off the birds. They took off in a flash of feathers, cooing to each other as they departed.
“Morning, Bee.” Curt said softly, setting his own coffee mug down on the balcony. “What were you so fixed on just now?” Shelby was shaking out his paw, trying to dismiss the pain of the burn.
“Morning, Curt. Just those birds. Nothing important.”
“The ones in the alley just now?”
“Mm,” Shelby replied nonverbally, digging another cigarette out of the pack and lighting it.
“Those were mourning doves!” Curt was excited. “Have you not seen mourning doves before? They’re basically pigeons, but smaller.” Living in the city, of course Shelby had seen pigeons before. But he had a different feeling about these birds, today.
“Oh. Hm. I don’t know that I’ve seen mourning doves before. I found them… noble?” The cat struggled to put into words what he found so enchanting about these basically-pigeons.
“Okay! That’s an interesting way to describe them. I’m not sure if I’d call them noble, but they’re cute birds. Did you know they mate for life? Those two birds were probably married! Like us!”
“Is that right? That’s a pleasant thought. Married birds.”
“They’re called ‘mourning’ doves because their call can sound mournful.” Curt wagged his tail, excited to be talking birds with his beloved husband.
“The sound they made when they took off? It didn’t sound mournful to me!”
“No, I don’t really hear it either, myself. But it’s a true bird fact! Also, they are the same bird as ‘turtle’ doves. Like at Christmas!”
“You don’t say!” Shelby treasured up all these things and pondered them in his heart.
“Uh.. yep. That’s all the mourning dove facts I know, unfortunately.”
“Oh. Well, thank you for sharing that. I would like to see these birds again, I think.”
“Wait a minute! Are mourning doves… your spark bird?” Curt got up from his seat.
“I’m… sorry?”
“Your spark bird! The bird that causes you to become obsessed with birds and birdwatching!”
“I hardly would call myself ‘obsessed’...” Shelby replied, defensively.
“Oh! Um… is this, like… a cat thing? Did you want… to eat them?” Curt asked, gently. Shelby placed a paw against his chest, wounded.
“Certainly not! I just found them noble and attractive and I wanted to look at them and keep looking at them and… and…” Shelby trailed off, not quite sure how to articulate his feelings about the alleyway avians.
“Yep! You’re a birder now.”
“Okay,” Shelby replied, a bit annoyed. “Let’s say I’m a birder now. What does a birder do, exactly?”
“Look at birds!” Curt’s tail was wagging so violently it threatened to knock his coffee mug off the balcony.
“That’s it? Anybody can do that.”
“I know! It’s one of the least exclusive hobbies!”
“Are you a birder? You’ve never mentioned this to me before.” Shelby raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
“Sure am!” Curt replied, enthusiastically.
“...Because you like to look at birds?”
“Because I like to look at birds exactly!”
“Very well.” The cat had resigned himself to this fate. “I am, now, a birder.”
Curt looked like he was about to burst with excitement. The big dog interest in birds was largely casual, but any opportunity to share something with Shelby was a gift.
“You know what we have to do now.” Curt said, confidently.
“Expand on that?” inquired the cat, raising an orange eyebrow.
“We have to go birding!”
“You mean outside? Can’t we just look at birds in the alley?”
“I’m afraid not!” Curt crossed his arms. We have to go on a nature walk and touch dirt.”
“To look at birds?”
“To look at birds exactly!”
“Very well. You find an appropriate location for this venture and I will choose an outfit.” Shelby took a long drag of his cigarette. What had this pair of mourning doves gotten him into?
—
It was the weekend, and Shelby was browsing his closet for appropriate hiking apparel. He had none. He settled on a pale pink sweater worn over a yellow polo shirt. If he was going to be in the wilderness, he wanted the wilderness to see him coming. Shelby walked out of the closet and into the dining room, where Curt was packing a small backpack with bottles of water and a miniature first aid kit, as well as a pair of binoculars.
“Morning, Bee!” Curt said amiably.
“Good morning!” Shelby tried to match the dog’s enthusiasm relatively successfully. “I’ve never been on a nature walk before. I am an indoor cat.”
“Not today, you’re not!”
“Hrm.”
Curt looked up at his small cat husband, who was clearly nervous about their adventure.
“Hey. It’s just the state park. It’s not like we’re going into some uncharted wilderness. We’ll be fine!”
“What if we become lost or disoriented?”
“We won’t!”
“Hrm.” Shelby was unconvinced, but remained willing to give it a go.
—
“They don’t have maps?” Shelby was apoplectic.
“Uh… no. Looks like they don’t. They have one big map at the ranger station, and the trails are color-coded, so they’ll have like paint or arrows on trees.” Curt stood in front of the sign at the trailhead. It was faded, but he could make out the various trails printed on to the board. There was a small acrylic cubby where, perhaps once, there were paper maps for visitors, but today the cubby was empty.
“That is ridiculous. We are certain to become lost.”
“It’s a 2 mile loop. We just go in a big circle and it leads back to the parking lot.”
“Hrm.”
“Would you like some trail mix?” Curt offered, hoping to soothe the agitated cat.
“What if we need to ration it for survival!?”
Curt laughed. “Ok, Bee. We will ration the trail mix for survival. Come on, let's go.” Begrudgingly, the orange feline followed Curt into the woods. Curt’s tail was wagging uncontrollably, while Shelby’s lashed back and forth with stress. As the pair traveled in relative silence, Shelby began to relax a bit. It was, he had to admit, a very pleasant day for outdoor activities. Just cold enough to justify his sweater, but not so cold as to be miserable. The sun was shining, and though he had not spotted any birds yet, he could hear them chip-chirping away on unseen branches. Curt pointed out interesting plants along the trail, while occasionally stopping to peer through his binoculars up at the treetops. One such stop-and-peek seemingly yielded results, as Curt thrust his handpaw out toward Shelby, as if to signal to him to be quiet, or still.
“I am neither moving nor making sounds, but okay” thought Shelby, a bit annoyed. Curt used his still-outstretched hand to beckon the cat over, and he leaned down so Shelby could look through the lenses of the binoculars.
“Bee, look!” Curt whispered. Shelby did look, and he saw a pair of taupe birds on a high branch, seemingly both interested in a pile of random sticks perched on their branch.
“Oh my god is that a nest?” Shelby whispered.
“It is! Mourning doves make terrible nests!” Curt replied. Shelby was awestruck. He stared at them for several minutes, watching them attend to their very bad nest, and to each other. Finally, he relinquished the binoculars back to Curt.
“See? Wasn’t this totally worth it!?” Curt’s tail was wagging again.
“Yes. This was worth it.” Shelby declared definitively. “Now let’s go home.”
“I think the parking lot is this way.” Curt said, less confidently than Shelby would have liked.
“You said it was a loop.”
“It is a loop! But there were branching paths that connected to other trails earlier and they weren’t marked super well”
“We have become lost and disoriented!” Shelby threw up his handpaws in exasperation.
“Nonsense. I’ll get us home.” Curt replied, still walking toward, he thought, the direction of the parking lot.
“I would like my ration of trail mix now.” Shelby sniffed.
“Ha! You’re taking this well, Bee.” Curt stopped and tipped the bag of nuts and fruit into Shelby’s waiting paws. The cat munched away, content - at least for now - to follow his husband out of - or deeper into - the woods. The pair approached a crossing marked by two arrows - to the left, the blue trail. To the right, perhaps an orange trail? The arrow had become faded by time and might have been any color in its youth.
“Weren’t we on the green trail?” Shelby asked.
“We were.”
“Hrm.”
Curt - using his innate sense of direction - elected to take the right path. The pair traveled somewhat peacefully down this path for a time, Curt still pointing out various flora and fauna to his rapt partner. Shelby, despite his best efforts to be technology-free that day, couldn’t help but glance at his phone.
“Curt.”
“Hm?”
“My fitness app says we have walked 3.1 miles on this 2 mile loop.”
Curt stopped walking.
“I am afraid we have become lost and disoriented.” Curt admitted. The dog’s tail stopped wagging, then started up again, as Curt had a terrible idea.
“You know, Bee, in the horror movies, this is right when the attractive young couple gets busy, unable to keep their paws off each other.” Curt raised a devilish eyebrow in Shelby’s direction.
“Yeah right before they get murdered!” Shelby crossed his arms. “Not gonna happen.”
“Oh come on! Aren’t you titillated by the sense of danger and adventure?”
“I am not. Further, I am forty years old.”
“Okay, so we’re not teens from a horror movie… so what?”
“So I’m past the age where it’s appropriate to be naked in public!” Curt looked crestfallen at Shelby’s rebuff. The cat scratched under Curt’s chin, and said, “Tell you what. You get us back home, and I’ll let you do whatever you want to me. That’s your carrot on a stick.” Curt’s tail wagged again, and he looked even more determined to navigate the poorly-marked trail.
After another mile or so, the pair came across another crossroads. This time, there was a green arrow! A return to the loop! Only…
“Up?” Shelby raised an orange eyebrow. The cat was correct. There were several arrows on the painted sign, but the green arrow pointed directly up to the tops of the trees. “What the fuck direction is up?” After some debate, the boys decided that ‘up’ in this case meant ‘right’, which was more in line with the trail up to that point. Sure enough, within another 15 minutes of walking, the trailhead sign came into view. Both boys breathed a heavy sigh of relief and piled into Curt’s car without saying anything. Curt pulled out of the parking lot and headed back toward the highway.
“So… birds, huh?” Curt ventured.
“Birds, indeed, husband.”