Chicago, like many cities in the States, has a Trap-Neuter-Return program that ostensibly keeps cats out of jail by leaving them on the streets where they lower the rat population by catching a few but mostly by making the whole neighborhood smell like a bad idea to ground rodents. These working cats have rakishly handsome clipped ears, and there's someone in the neighborhood who's signed up to make sure they have regular food and water, as well as some sort of shelter against the worst of our weather.
This is the sparrow,
that yeets the grain,
that summons the rat,
that tempts the cat,
that bothers the squirrel,
that feeds the hawk,
that circles the porch,
where I sit.
If you see a cat out and and about with two intact ears, you're in for a few hours of scrolling through the neighborhood facedoors looking for a frantic human who may possibly be in an entirely different country for the next month. Then, if you're a pushover like me, you'll probably be glad the Jewel will deliver cheap cat food same day.
But that hasn't happened to us in a couple of years.
Here's what usually happens: In the morning I shuffle out to the back porch with a cup of coffee and my Pall Malls, and maybe my laptop but definitely my phone. Within a five to ten minutes, the power and cable lines that run from the alley to the house are filled with a line of patient but literally starving sparrows. Depending on how quickly the coffee kicks in and how loud the birds' morning chatter is, I'll eventually notice the bird feeder has never been filled.
I'm not an uncaring monster, so I'll grab a cup of seed to tip into the feeder. Then one rowdy flight-boy will scream, "brothers, the famine has lifted," land on the feeder, and proceed to fling as much of the seed as possible in all directions — towards the ground, the porch, sometimes a three-pointer into my coffee cup, occasionally directly at my face.
This valiant socialist vanguard eats nothing until he's satisfied with the distribution of wealth.
The upshot is, by the time I'm done dumping my coffee and back out on the porch with an unseeded cup, some pigeons and mourning doves and cardinals have joined the party on the ground and my yard is very entertaining morning television if you're a bored feral tom who's already had breakfast but wants to zone out for an hour.
Another scream — "brothers, the furry britches of death approach" — heralds the casual saunter of one of the neighborhood clipped-ears. It's usually a striped-brown brawler with with muscles on his muscles. The birds levitate back to the wires and the cat prowls once, twice around the patio, before plopping in a bit of sun to enjoy the autonomous sensory meridian response of the disgruntled birds who have never once had a meal.