ON THE HOT SEAT...

My pair of Eastern phoebes nests each year near my deck, and they spend a good part of each day perching together on a metal trellis that holds my old-fashioned roses.

An appropriate spot for them, I think, because this is an old-fashioned kind of couple; phoebes, after all, do mate for life.

Today, with temps in the high 80s, I watched them fly together to that favored metal perch, and OUCH! The minute their butts made contact with the hot metal, they recoiled. Like sitting on a hot stove!

Love hurts sometimes.

(Rose Moore, from my journals, May 2010)