The Birds

On our first morning in Rome, I lingered over a second cup of cappuccino at a small table up on the balcony adjacent to our hotel’s breakfast lounge. From the roof behind me I heard a birdcall that was a new one on me...like a combined throaty warble with a sustained bullfrog croak.

Down swooped this large creature the size of a crow, but with a white feathers on its breast and shoulders variegating its otherwise black coat. It perched on the electrical wires running in front of the hotel and soon it was joined by several others of its breed.

Just then Hildi, our all-knowing Icelandic desk clerk and concierge, stepped out to the balcony and I asked her, pointing to the wired flock, “I haven’t seen that sort before...do you know what they’re called?”

“Birds,” she replied.