When Willie awoke on the opening day of mating season, he went about preparing for the event in a rather lackadaisical manner. The other boy-birds who would be out there competing for the best looking girly-birds in the forest today would be nervous with stage fright, Willie knew, and he was rather pompous and arrogant about the event. While the others stammered and stuttered, trying to remember the lyrics and melody line of their mating song, Willie would be crooning not one, but several songs. He would entertain the girly-birds for a while, sort of tease them, then he would perform his actual mating song, "Feelings."

After he'd had a breakfast of toasted beetles and aphids washed down by several shots of fig-slush, Willie flew down to a little creek and took a bath. Back in his nest, he preened his multicolored feathers, checked to make sure his extra appendages were swinging freely, and stood back to check himself in the mirror--"Outfuckingstanding!"

He filled a little flask with fig-slush, tucked it into his chestfeathers and perched on the rim of his nest for a moment listening to his competition. Rank amateurs, he thought, I'm embarrassed for them.

Willie cruised around above the treetops for a minute or two as he searched for a spot away from the ear shattering racket that filled the forest. He spotted a low dogwood tree among a clump of elms, oaks, and maples at the edge of the forest and chose it as his stage. The dogwood tree was wearing it's spring attire and the white blossoms, Willie figured, would be a good background for his nuclear painted outfit. He lit on a limb about eight feet above the ground and looked around. It was a perfect place to perform. The limb he'd chosen had a rather long space between the offshoots and it was perfect for his choreographed movements--the professional accents he inserted in each song.

Willie cleared his throat, spread his wings, threw his head back and began. He started out with an up-tempo diddy made famous by the Andrews Sister-birds, "Don't Shit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me." At the end of the first verse he modulated from "C" to "E-flat," which is not easy to do. But, professional that he was, Willie simply slid from "C" to "E," then to "A," then up a half step to "B-flat," then augmented the "B-flat" which made "E-flat" the next, most sensible move. Rah!

Willie ended the song with a special flair, fluttering his wings and taking a deep bow. He knew they were out there listening to him, watching him, wanting him, yearning for his touch. Then he kicked into "Unchained Melody." Willie used an extra special helping of vibrato during this love ballad and he strolled back and forth on the limb sweeping his wings in wide arcs, like Tony Bennett-bird used to do in Vegasville.

After Willie's renditions of "Clear Day," "See You in September" and "The Wabash Cannon Ball," he felt like it was time for a break. He moved to the trunk of the dogwood tree, sat down on the limb, leaned back, took a sip of fig-slush, and waited.