March 20, 2020 It’s the Little Things…

A few weeks ago when I was out walking, I heard a new voice coming from our neighbor’s trees. This is one of the advantages of walking without listening to podcasts and music – I hear the beautiful birdie choruses. It was an interesting little half-warble, half-gobble kind of song, and very short. God bless the chickadees, blue jays, cardinals and crows for sticking around all winter – true Minnesotans – but it’s awfully nice when the fair-weather group start to trickle back into town. This new, unknown bird was suitably elusive, so its identity remained a mystery.

Soon after that, we started getting visits every morning from a woodpecker. We could tell he was right outside our bedroom, but we couldn’t see him. His visits were so timely that I began keeping my camera handy just in case I could get a glimpse. He’d start in with his friendly tappity-tappity at around 8:00 a.m. and I’d open the balcony door ever so quietly and tip-toe out in my bathrobe and slippers, camera in hand. He was more clever than I, and very shy, so it was hard to catch him at his percussion. He’d fly off, but beyond where we could see him. But one morning, he slipped up – he flew to a tree right by our balcony and at last, we got a brief glimpse before he took off again, too quickly for me to get a photo, but not before we were able to observe a distinctive red head. Aha!!

Internet research ensued, during which I concluded that our new neighbor was not a red-headed woodpecker, but a red-bellied one. They look similar, so I listened to their bird calls, and there it was – that half-warble/half-gobble! I’m really quite fond of the internet sometimes.

At this point, I began to be in earnest about getting a good photo. This involved the sacrifice of getting dressed earlier, since I was beginning to feel a little sheepish about running outside with in my bathrobe and slippers. I got a somewhat dark-ish photo of him on our tree once. Not good enough.

This morning I was downstairs in the living room and sure enough, just before 8:00 a.m. he came a-calling. I crept out the back door (he was out front) and came around the corner as stealthily as I could. Let me remind you that it was 22 DEGREES out there. Bingo! I got a few shots of his head before he took off. This was better than nothing, but I wanted more.

A couple hours later, all bundled up, I went out for a walk and almost immediately heard his call. I froze, looking up to the trees in our front yard from whence the sound seemed to be coming. Glory, hallelujah! There he is! I started taking tons of photos and while I was still in this state of bliss, he had a friend show up, so I got photos of the two of them. You might think I’m getting excited all out of proportion over this, but it was a grand moment and I thank God for it.

As my friend Rachelle often says, “It’s the little things.” And isn’t it nice to think about something else besides that which is occupying all our news and social media?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.