Where Were The Starlings?

I
love to feed birds.  I have two main
feeding positions in the backyard.  The
first has two long tube feeders, each with multiple feeding positions, and a
large single feeder that holds as much seed as either of the tube feeders.  About fifty feet behind the main position, is
a second one.  It holds one suet feeder
and is mainly for the neighborhood woodpeckers and the starlings when they are
moving through our area.

It
is early winter, and the starlings are moving; heading for Cancun I suspect, jealously.  Yesterday I filled the tube feeders,
scattered cracked corn for the pigeons, doves, and squirrels, and filled Streak’s
feeder (our resident chipmunk).  Then,
noting the suet feeder was empty I loaded it with a new suet cake.  As I put the cake in the feeder I carefully
checked the sky and all the large trees near the feeder – there wasn’t a single
starling in sight or within earshot.

Before
I made it back to the house I heard the starlings arrive.  Without stopping, which I knew would startle
them, I looked over my shoulder.  There
must have been fifty starlings on and under the feeder, and there were more
dropping out of the trees.

Where
were the starlings a few moments before? 
If you think I know, you’re wrong. 
And if you think I know where my prospective readers, or yours, are
before we publish our work, I don’t know that either.  But I do know this, nothing happens for a
writer until something is written and published.

Have
a magical, best-selling, New Year.