Our springtime is usually pretty quiet out here.

Today took the cake for sounds.

I was lucky to shuttle James off to bed tonight with any nerves left in his body. Between the fox, the escape, and the panic calls, this evening delivered more chaos per hour than most weeks manage in total.

And it wasn ‘t even over yet.

Fox Patrol (They’re Getting Good at This)

It started this afternoon with a fox who apparently did not read the property line.

All four birds took to the air with a wall of alarm calls — sharp, staccato, overlapping honks that sound like someone is stepping on a dozen angry car horns in rapid succession. It is not a graceful sound. It is the sound of four birds who have collectively decided that something must die or leave immediately.

Neo led the charge — side by side with Han, wings out, full sprint, like small feathered raptors who had finally found a reason to take their jobs seriously.

He’s always been the quicker study. Han provided the volume. Neo provided the direction.

Together, they chased that fox out of the yard like it owed them money.

I was genuinely impressed.

This is the part of the story that goes well.

The Great Escape (Morpheus, Obviously)

All four birds had been camping out earlier in the weekend. With the mild weather, I didn’t blame them. They needed the practice. The last thing I want is for them to get stuck outside one night and not know how to find a tree and roost.

Tonight, though, I wanted them in.

I put Morpheus and Neo into the greenhouse on their side and shut the doors. Everyone secured. Plan executed.

That lasted about an hour.

We heard it from inside. Not the Morpheus Whistle. Not the nightly aria. This was full panic calling. The kind that makes you put your shoes on before your brain catches up.

I went out to find Han, Leia, and Morpheus in their preferred tree.

Wait.

Morpheus was in the greenhouse when I left. Doors closed.

Of course she was.

I looked around. No Neo. I went back to the greenhouse to check, and there he was — still inside, exactly where I’d put him. Except now the netting I’d hung from the ceiling was torn down, hanging in shreds like evidence from a crime scene.

Morpheus had figured out how to pull it loose, squeeze through, and leave.

Without Neo.

Tomorrow the netting comes down for good. She’s gotten too good at finding ways out, and I don’t want either of them getting tangled and hurt. The netting was supposed to be a barrier.

Morpheus treated it like a puzzle.

The Part Where Morpheus Realized She’d Left Someone Behind

Here’s the thing about Morpheus.

She will break out of anything. She will defy containment with the focus of someone who has studied the blueprints and identified the weak point.

But she will not check to see if her brother made it out too.

Darkness fell. Morpheus was in the tree. Neo was in the greenhouse. And the moment Morpheus realized Neo wasn’t beside her, the Morpheus Whistle — the one she’d perfected as a chick, the one that once required Andrea Bocelli to manage — came back.

Not the baby version.

The grown-up, full-volume, something-is-very-wrong version.

There was nothing I could do. It was dark. Neo was safe inside. Morpheus was safe in the tree. Nobody was in danger.

They just didn’t know where each other were.

Same whistle. Higher stakes.

I monitored Neo on the cameras. Stressed, pacing, but settling. After about thirty minutes, everyone went quiet.

James, meanwhile, was watching all of this unfold from inside with the look of a man who had been promised this would be simple.

Intermission (It Was Not the End)

I thought that was it. Peak chaos. Evening complete.

A short time later, James and I both heard a sound from outside that I can only describe as what happens when you combine a human scream with a horror movie and set it loose in the dark.

Blood-curdling. Repeated. Close enough to matter.

We shot out of our seats to check the birds.

Everyone was settled. Tree. Greenhouse. Not a peep. Four birds acting like they had been asleep for hours and had no idea what we were talking about.

It happened again.

This time I could tell it was coming from the next property over. And now I was standing outside in bare feet with a flashlight, which is exactly the kind of protection that works in zero scenarios.

I went inside, grabbed my phone, came back out, and recorded it.

Then I looked it up.

Raccoons. Fighting or mating — and honestly, with raccoons, those two activities sound identical and may in fact be the same event.

I’d heard that sound years ago. You don’t forget it. It’s the kind of noise that makes you understand why people in the 1800s believed in monsters.

The Last Nerve

James, at that point, had his last nerve plucked. He bailed for bed.

Fair.

This is the piece that stays with me after the chaos settles.

The birds have to get used to the sounds. The temperatures. The things that move through the dark.

Raccoons are known to climb trees and knock roosting birds off their perches at night. I am hoping ours are too fat and lazy to bother, and that my birds are roosting high enough to not be worth the trip.

Hoping.

This too shall pass. They have to learn. They have to adjust.

And so will James.

(As I finished writing this near midnight, I caught a raccoon trying to get into the greenhouse. Officially wearing out my last nerve as well.)