Round Here

This week was for the birds. On Monday I joined up with a Cape Cod Bird Club hike in town as part of a story I'm writing - and because I really like bird watching. In four hours I had more new birds to add to my life list than I'd managed to find in the past four years: scarlet tanager, orchard oriole, savannah sparrow, great crested flycatcher, indigo bunting, grasshopper sparrow. It was great. I was on a new-bird high. Then, on Wednesday, I'm upstairs in the bedroom and I look out the window and there's a great crested flycatcher on a tree outside the window, all of five feet away.
What gives?
I've never seen this bird before in my life until Monday - now I'm seeing it outside my own bedroom window? It was as if it was mocking me. But that would have made it a different bird all together wouldn't it?
Then, a day later, S asked me if birds could read. I think he meant specifically if they could read street signs. "No," I said. But how interesting is it to think that a child might assume an animal could read. Must be all those talking animals in picture books. If they can talk - why not read?
Today I myself wondered if I put frosting in our compost if the crows would get a sugar rush.

song: Round Here • artist: Counting Crows