The Hidden Breakfast

Every morning, a flock of goldfinches flew to the same corner of the garden.

The youngest bird in the flock could not understand why.

The sunflowers they visited were no longer bright and beautiful. Their petals had fallen away weeks ago. The flower heads were dark and drooping, and the stalks creaked whenever the wind blew. To the young goldfinch, they looked old.

Surely there were prettier places to visit.

One day, as the flock crossed the garden, he noticed a patch of late-blooming flowers near the fence.

"Why don't we go there?" he asked.

The older birds barely glanced in that direction.

"Breakfast is this way," one of them replied.

The young goldfinch followed, though not very happily.

When they landed among the old sunflowers, the flock immediately got to work. Birds hopped from flower head to flower head, pecking and chirping contentedly while the young goldfinch looked around in confusion. He saw no berries, no fruit, and nothing that seemed worth such enthusiasm.

An older bird landed beside him.

"Have you looked closely?" she asked.

The young goldfinch hopped onto a sunflower head and studied the dark center. At first he saw only a crowded pattern of tiny shapes arranged in neat spirals. Then he pecked at one and felt a seed come loose. He swallowed it, pecked at another, and quickly discovered that the entire flower head was packed with seeds.

Hundreds of them.

For the rest of the morning he forgot all about the flowers by the fence. He hopped from sunflower to sunflower, eating happily beside the others. Every seed seemed to reveal another hidden among the spirals.

When the flock finally prepared to leave, the young goldfinch took one last look at the old plants.

They still appeared weathered and untidy. Their petals were gone, and some of the stalks leaned at odd angles.

But the old sunflowers were feeding an entire flock. They were busier than any flowers in the garden.

As the flock rose into the sky, the young goldfinch glanced back one final time.

The sunflowers no longer looked old to him.

They looked exactly like what they were.

Breakfast.