Feathered Dreams

I went bird-watching for the first time fifteen years ago. My friend Heather, who knew much more about the natural world than I did, suggested we go birding on a Spring weekend in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where we were in nursing school. She took me to Mount Auburn Cemetery and, while I forget what birds we saw, I remember the Spring blossoms and the excitement of listening for bird calls and then trying to seek out the makers of those songs with her binoculars.

I wish I could say that that experience set me on a trajectory of frequent "birding", as now I would have fifteen years of experience under my belt, and a most probably impressive list (this is a birding thing, I have gathered, having your "list" of birds you've seen) of birds I've seen and exotic places I've visited in the name of this hobby. But, no; I loved it, but have only formally gone birding a few times since. One time being a few days ago when Ezra and Reuben and I rode our bikes down to the Springwater Trail, just below our house, and watched the herons, geese, ducks and red-wing blackbirds in Oaks Bottom.

But, the amazing thing is that I now live (and have lived for the past ten years) just across the street from a bird sanctuary. So, while I don't formally go looking for birds very often, birds are present in our daily lives--the joy I get from watching birds at our feeders, especially the woodpeckers the come to our suet feeder, is enormous. The sense of discovery and excitement that I get when, after viewing a new bird at our feeder, the boys and I pore over our bird books and try to make a correct identification, is huge.

Ezra and I identified this northern flicker who came to visit a few days ago:

That night, I dreamt of a tree in our front yard filled with chattering and colorful birds and on whose branches slinked baby tigers and snow leopards.