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| New camera! |
High 50s, lower 60s. A little cloudy. Clouds are slowly moving NW.
The heron is the first sighting of the morning. Darker than a Great Blue, slate colored. It's heading west, working its way to the Sound. Jake and I spot it two evenings later, same heron, same shade, same direction, different time of day.
On this morning of April 12, a mom is packing up a stroller to wheel her kid somewhere on Stone Way, right under the heron soaring west.
Two robins make appearances. One of them flits about the yard, gathering nest materials, and stopping for juicy worms if it is so lucky to find one. E.J. was working in the garden the other day, and one of these robins was busy working by the side of the house, tugging and munching on good worms.
The other robin sits up top on a telephone wire and keeps an eye out for its partner. They don't chirp at one another, they stay within eyesight. The robin on the ground poops on the curb then hops under Madden's car as some humans walk by on the sidewalk. It's so funny to see it walk, and hard to describe. It moves quickly, like a run, but with the pace of a walk. Scurrying is probably the best word.
A chickadee flies in to sit on the lower branches of the Cedar tree. It doesn't do the call that named it (chicka dee dee dee), instead it makes some short peeps. I never realized how high pitched Chickadees were.
Then I hear the laughing birds. Each time I see them, I think, "Finch." Something about the beak, or size and shape of the body. The truth is I'm not an expert with birds, really I just feel like they are finches.
They are also in a pair, everyone seems paired up by now. The one I've seen make the laughing sound has a red breast. This laughing noise sounds like a child on the piano learning arpeggios. Jumping up and down across the notes, showing off how well it can hit them.
Two smaller birds who I don't know, and don't come close enough to introduce themselves, are also paired up together in the grass. They are about the size of chickadees, maybe even a little smaller, but they don't have any markings I can notice. They chirp back and forth as they go about their business.
The crows are soaring about up top, they don't come down to the street on April 12. They are acting reasonably sane. Last Saturday, the second day of Passover, when we had our Seder, they were going crazy. One crow would perch on a tree or roof, and call out to the murder of 7 or 8. As if the perching crow was directing the rest of them, the murder would dance, swoop, turn, and dive together. This was around the time of the full moon. E.J. thought they were acting out the story of the plagues.
On April 12, runners and young professionals move by, all in a hurry. Their ears or eyes are shut out by earplugs or a smart phone. I do not write this to judge them. In an hour, in the middle of my work day, I am glued to the computer screen or absorbed with texting my students. These are just more patterns I'm noticing.
A few weeks ago, there was a Hummingbird. I looked at a Crow sitting on top of a house up Interlake, and a hummingbird came and hovered next to it for a fleeting moment.
When I walk up to my room after my sit spot on April 12, I see the Red-Breasted Laughing Finch sitting in the tree outside my window. I think they are building a nest over my windows. Fine by me. I can't think of a better bird song to wake up to on Seattle spring mornings.
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| You can barely see their nest above the diagonal beam |
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