Outside my window

This morning I've been watching a female red-bellied woodpecker chomping up sunflower seeds and then regurgitating them into the maw of her plump, impatient young. Yes, this is pretty tame entertainment, but it beats anything I experienced over three days in the hospital, where the chief distractions were provided by the groaning woman across the hall and a television on which every station demonstrated an annoying obsession with Michael Jackson.

Except the Food Network. Not a trace of Michael Jackson or moaning women on the Food Network. I lay there fighting nausea while watching Bobby Flay grill burgers, Rachael Ray assemble ice-cream sandwiches, and Paula Deen celebrate blandness with a recipe combining chopped cooked chicken, cooked broccoli, cream of mushroom soup, cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, and buttered cracker crumbs. "Every new bride should have this recipe," she said. "It'll help you hold on to your man." But who would want to hold on to a man who thinks canned cream of mushroom soup qualifies as real food?

Outside my window, the birds provide a very different recipe for distraction. Goldfinches, bluejays, cardinals, nuthatches, chickadees and many others flitter and feed and fight for the best spots at the feeders, while ruby-throated hummingbirds stage elaborate battles for possession of the hummingbird feeders and spangled frittillaries flutter over the bright yellow sunflower blossoms bursting into bloom in my front garden. It's a soothing show, constantly changing and always free.

And best of all, there's no sign of Michael Jackson.