Really, this is as much about puppy-watching as bird-watching. But the puppy doesn’t need all that much actual watching, because she stays near me when we’re outside. (Occasionally I’m afraid for a moment that she’s disappeared, but it always turns out she’s behind me or under my chair, and I just missed seeing her move there from where she had been.) So I find myself looking at the yard with more attention than I usually give it.
I love taking walks outdoors, but my idea of outdoors is the woods, not the back yard. As long as the grass gets mowed and the shrubbery doesn’t encroach too much on the driveway, I don’t give the yard much thought. But now, sitting in a lawn chair with a puppy either in my lap or under my chair, I look around, and up. Tonight I looked up. And I saw birds.
I’ve seen birds in our yard before. Sometimes I try to photograph them – but they never cooperate. Just when I’m getting close enough for a good shot, they fly away. And they’re usually just robins, cardinals, and whatever the little grey ones are. But either our puppy is attracting a different sort of birds, or – much more likely – I’m noticing the ones I hadn’t noticed before.
There was what might have been a female cardinal on the sidewalk yesterday. It’s been a long time since I learned about cardinals in third grade, but I seem to remember the female is more of a greyish brown, and this one had a crest on its head. Then this evening I saw something tiny and very fast that I thought might be a hummingbird. Not being a birdwatcher, I have no idea if a hummingbird would even come close to our maple before returning to the neighbor’s yard (perhaps she has a hummingbird feeder?).
Then there was the hole in the maple. I hadn’t noticed it before – perhaps it used to be hidden by one of the branches that fell in the storm. While I wondered whether anything lived in the hole, a black and white bird landed near it, and I wondered if it was a woodpecker. But it didn’t peck at the tree. It poked its head in the hole – then the whole body disappeared inside. After a while the head appeared from the inside, looking out. I stared until the whole tree began to look like an abstract geometric pattern (quite a nice effect), but somehow I managed to miss the moment when the bird came out again.
I look forward to sitting some more with Kyra and watching for birds. Maybe after a while I’ll get to know what I’m looking at.
