Last year I started taking care the birds in the garden. Nothing special, just putting some food and water for them. Behind the windows I watch them sometimes flying among the trees, resting on the branches or on the fence. I could not believe the variety of them, living in a suburb of the city, among scattered trees and gardens around the houses. Robins, hoopoes, doves, common blackbirds, magpies are some of them that I can easily identify. But the prevailing kind is the finches.
The team of finches has conquered the garden and they have declared themselves as the owners of the food! They were all around the pots with the seeds that I was putting for them. They were eating and eating and they would not let any other bird come down to taste the delicious food that was offered.
One of them seemed to be their leader. He had a plume on his head; he was bigger than the others of his kind and was standing on a branch above the central pot monitoring the area around.
At some point of time the regularity of food being replaced in the pots was not normal. The volume of seeds was decreasing and finches could not understand what was going on… Thus their king decided to rule the time each of them would have to eat from the pot. Then he chased them away for the next one to come. The food was decreasing and the king was worried that the food would not be enough not for his flock but for him himself as well. So he kept the food guarded and would not let even the other finches to eat. He ate and ate and then was sitting and protected the pot just to have something to eat later. The other finches tried to change the situation by approaching in many ways their leader and the food; some politely, some attacking. But the king was strong and repelled them every time they attempted to get close to the food.
Then, the pots were full again, even with more seeds than before. But the King was left alone; monitoring the pot, not flying any more, not singing; stack on the surrounding branches with no citizens in his kingdom. He never wondered where the food was coming from, what justified him to be the administrator and the owner of it, but he very well knew how to keep it all for himself without being able to eat it all.
He was given the singing, he was given the garden, he was given the companion of other birds, he was given the food and in return he managed to lose everything.
The last thing I remember of the King of the finches was his fight with the cat.
Until the next time, the pots are filled and the garden is full of singing birds, take care and SHARE.
(This is a original story / photos of greed…)