Scheduled Birds

Birds do not tell me their schedule. I advertised as usual for the second Saturday event - a regular on the annual calender - as a bird watch and identification hour. A nice flock of tundra swans showed up, not close enough for good photos, a photographer whined, but there for the counting. Some even flew around so I could see how their flight silhouette differed from that of Canada geese. Very accommodating of them, I thought. A great blue heron flew over, not landing within my sight, although if one is around, it will soon be seen stalking for fish near the shore or the edge of the island.
A pair of Northern Harrier hawks cruised the water but were clearly not impressed with the variety in the lunchroom so they disappeared. California gulls rested on the log and several tested the southwest breeze that roughened the water. Black cloud layers discouraged bird watchers from even leaving their warm couches and I was left alone to see the feathered wonders. Once the sun burrowed its way between the clouds but its only got a peek and was not seen again.
The blotch on the breast of the song sparrow gives that bird away if I don't hear the lovely twitter he haughtily shouts forth like an avian Pavoratti. I watch his breast swell up as if he was on an opera stage. White crowned sparrows flit and hide at the bower and in the large sage brush in the native plants. I see them all winter in the bushes by our mailbox.
With the temperature of 44 degrees F, the weather was agreeable enough to spend time outdoors and I dressed for it. So much so that I had to shed several layers when I sat down to compute. From my east window I can view the 25 foot Birch tree that may not survive the driveway and parking lot development. Now it holds a Kestrel that comes and goes. A pair of red winged blackbirds rested a bit. That is a species that made me look twice. The females are dark brown with attractive flecks but show not one sign of the colorful red coverts visible on the top edge of the males's wings. Unlike the yellow-headed blackbird female who insists on a very pale vestage of yellow perhaps because of the horrid squawk the male delivers. She is not to be outdone.
Most unusual birds were the two 4-engine B-17s. They must have been scheduled to land at the Pasco airport but I did not expect them. Otherwise civilization drones by on the highway and train tracks and does not disrupt my feathered friends. I would not want the metal version to encounter biological ones, by anyone's schedule.
Naomi Sherer