As I type this, I am listening to the songs of several birds hopping and twittering (lowercase-t) among the branches of the Norway maple tree outside my office window.

Tomorrow at this time, those birds will have to hop and twit somewhere else.  Because the tree will be gone–under my execution order.

After much arborist-consulting and soul-searching, we’ve decided that the tree was too badly damaged by last weekend’s severe “macro-burst” storm to be saved.  Most of the main branches are tattered and sheared clean.  If we were to remove the damaged pieces, what remained would be dangerously unbalanced and nearly bald.  It would be neither safe for us nor kind to the tree to keep it.

That doesn’t mean my heart is whole, though, and those cheerful birds aren’t helping.  After all, we were obliviously at the movies when the storm hit.  We’re painfully aware of how close we came to turning onto our street and discovering our house to be gone.  And now we’re inflicting the very horror we were so fortunate to avoid onto these birds.

Within a couple of weeks, we will replace the tree with something native, sturdy, and attractive that the birds will just love.  And, right–birds are not human beings, their instincts will guide them to one of the many other nearby trees until they discover a new home by my office window. 

But all the same, what I guess I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, birdlings.  I’m so sorry.

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