Maybe it’s my bad mood from wrestling with new software yesterday, but I could not motivate myself to spend another day at the desk. I half-heartedly thought about an overnight trip to bird in Eastern Washington, but felt the greater weight of my house husband responsibilities. Which is how I found myself under attack by a hormone crazed Song Sparrow in the parking lot at Discovery Park.
It was the car, actually, which suffered the attack. I pulled in, and the sparrow dashed itself against the windshield, then upon the passenger side mirror. It lunged again and again at the reflection. What it saw in the mirror was another male invading its territory. It perched on top of the mirror, shat, and sang a triumphant song sparrow song. And flew again into pitched battle.
They aren’t called bird-brained for nothing.
Despite the entertainment, it took a long time for my bad mood to lift. The joggers annoyed me. Their dogs especially annoyed me, but it doesn’t take a bad mood for that. I hated the weed-whacker that drowned out the birdsong, I hated the beeping back-up signal on the park department pickup. I even hated the overhead jet traffic on approach to Seatac. And when I could hear birds, I couldn’t identify them.
As I walked deeper into the park, and found a path that gave me complete solitude, my mood lightened. What’s that song? I do this every spring, it seems. I spend long minutes staring, open mouthed, into a dense canopy, seeking movement. Finally I spy the source. Oh yeah, that’s the Orange Crowned Warbler song, I remember you. An expert birder I am not. There are a half dozen bird songs that go unidentified on this walk, but I am becoming more connected with my surroundings and less stuck inside my head. The rest of the day is a relaxed, but not very productive workday.
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