Finding Cora

Finding Cora

Cora awoke to the roosters crow, the same way she did every morning. Birds inside and outside of the cage began chirping and chittering sleepily.  Cora had spent a safe night and felt quite calm in the morning. For a moment she forgot where she was but the morning sky was different. Ordinarily she couldn't see much sky from her night perch in the cage. On this morning, edging away from the crevice she had backed into, and peeping out from under an oak leaf, she could see sunshine filtering through the leaves. Everything glowed around her.  

Cora flew up to the branch above her where the leaves were thinner. From her high perch Cora saw the magnificent sky opening to the sun as it rose. The edge of the early morning sun was a golden arc on the horizon rising slowly to shine kindly on the land. In the distance, an eagle soared. Old feelings of wanting to soar into the sky rushed through her tiny body. Could she leave the flock - her family? Could she leave Mr. and Mrs. Winkle? Shaking her head and ruffling her feathers, she told herself  “No! I don’t know how to live out here. And I’m not an eagle.”

Stamping her tiny talons she decided she would just enjoy this perch until Mr. and Mrs. Winkle came out to sit in their rocking chairs, reading and letting everyone flock around them. The Winkles probably hadn't even noticed her disappearance. But Cora knew that Wally had. Had he had been awake all night? Had he clung to the inside of the cage and called to Cora every now and then to come home?

Cora’s feelings were so mixed up - and she didn’t even know that cockatiels had this many feelings. So she thought and she thought while a busy wren family twittered and the crows raspy voices raked the air. A robin flew up to her branch and wanted to know why she had stayed out of the cage in the night. It almost felt like she was at home. All the birds were different but all the birds in the tree were friendly. Some of them she knew from their visits to the cage that protected the flock.

Suddenly she heard the flock squawking their welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Winkle. Finally. What should she do?  How would she get down and across the lane without being someone’s breakfast?

But Mr. and Mrs. Winkle didn’t stay in the cage - they didn’t even go to their rocking chairs. She could see them talking to Wally and then....they were calling her! “Cora! Cora!” They did notice!

Mr. Winkle went one way and Mrs. Winkle went the other. Mrs. Winkle was coming across the gravelly lane to the big oak tree. Cora was so excited! She bobbed up and down and screamed “I’m up here! I’m up here! I’m up here!”

Mrs. Winkle heard Cora’s screams and called Mr. Winkle. “Mr. Winkle! Bring the big ladder! Wally was right. He knew that she would go to the big oak tree.”

Mr. Winkle went into the toolshed behind the house, put his big ladder in his old green truck and drove over to the big tree. He carefully backed the truck up to the tree. Putting the ladder up from the bed of the truck box to the trunk of the tree, he made it steady and solid so he could climb up and try to reach Cora. Mr. Winkle didn't see Mrs. Winkle climb into the truck box. He had just made the ladder steady and secure, when Mrs. Winkle in her housecoat and green slippers almost ran up the ladder.

“Come Cora. Come sit on my shoulder and we’ll go down together.”

And so Cora came home with Mr. and Mrs. Winkle, and back to Wally in the big cage filled with sunflowers and strawberries. She was glad to be back with the flock, with her family, but still wistful about the great outdoors. It had been a wonderful and terrifying experience.  

Cora thought quietly to herself "Maybe I could learn how to live safely outdoors. I could fly in the big oak tree and eat grapes from the grapevine in the yard. Maybe Mr. Winkle would make a birdhouse just for me so I could stay outside. Then I wouldn’t have to leave the flock or the Winkles. Maybe...........

“We should come home from adventures and perils, and 

discoveries every day with new experience and character.”

 ~ Henry David Thoreau