Mike has a bird feeder outside the window in his office. This is the window closest to the treadmill. There is a little red-headed finch that visits the feeder every morning when I run, even though it has been empty for weeks. He keeps coming back every morning. I see him cock his head to the side to look at me beyond the glass. It’s so bright outside that my movements are barely detectable to him. I suspect that if there was food out there, he would gorge himself on it no matter what I did on the treadmill.

He’s the only bird that I’ve seen visit that feeder. We have tons of sparrows and black capped chickadees in the neighborhood, but he’s the only bird who has visited us while I’ve been watching. I know there are numerous other birds in the neighborhood that would love to chomp Mike’s very expensive bird food. Why haven’t they found us yet?

Mike and I were at the shopping center on 1300 East and 2100 South a couple of weeks ago. We were breaking in a new pair of tennis shoes, so we walked the distance from the New Balance store to the Shopko at the other end. On the way, Mike noticed a bird call that was unfamiliar.

We looked up to find and entire flock of cliff swallows. They were building their mud nests on the brick walls of the shopping center. The wall faced north, so they were protected from the hot southern sun and the blustery winds from the east and west. The birds would leave the nest, returning with a small lump of mud. The nests looked like textured pottery and I imagined the broods of chicks that would be raised in them.

We tried to take pictures of the nests, but we didn’t have Mike’s fancy camera, just my Canon, so they didn’t turn out. I had to be content with the memory of the hundreds of birds, building little mud huts for themselves on the wall of an otherwise boring building. I hope the landlords don’t squirt down their nests before the babies are ready to leave them.

Not one cliff swallow has come to eat at our feeder. Now that I think of it, I think they’re carnivorous, so shelled sunflower seeds probably wouldn’t appeal to them. I guess I’ll have to visit them instead of sitting around waiting for them to visit me like my red-headed finch friend.