#34: Little Orange Bird!

I remember, the day after we bought our house with its little square of backyard, looking down on its general vicinity from our Airbus's gradual ascent out of Toronto. My brother, my cousin, and I were heading home to Newfoundland for our grandfather's funeral (he was 103!) and I was gazing down fondly on the idea of a 30 x 100 lot and imagining what Kelly and I would do on that little patch of green.

We'd plant flowers, like my grandmother did, and vegetables, like Kelly's. We'd stick up a birdfeeder and see what flew by.

What a lot has, for a little urban patch of green. A patch that luckily happens to be on the migratory path of quite a few species and, with its nearby ravines, is probably a good resting place after the flight across Lake Ontario. We've aided and abetted by growing berry-bearing shrubs and native woodland plants, and putting in a bird bath with moving water.

Of course we have house sparrows, but we've also got chipping, white-throated, and white-crowned sparrows. Purple, house and American gold finches make you forget about the starlings. Often, grackles. Once, rusty blackbirds. Northern flickers, hairy and downy woodpeckers, and a pair of pileated woodpeckers. Chickadees a go-go, hermit thrushes, and veeries. Once, a stunned ovenbird. Once a redtailed hawk and twice, a Cooper's. Fat little whitebreasted nuthatches, chipper winter wrens, and pugnacious brown creepers. American robins, red-winged blackbirds, blue jays, Northern cardinals. Several generations of mourning doves. American crows, ring-billed gulls, brown-headed cowbirds. Swarms of dark eyed juncoes in their little tuxedoes. Canada goose. And then today's gorgeous number 34: Baltimore Oriole.

I caught it in the corner my eye while looking out the bedroom window and talking to Kelly.


She probably won't want to admit it, but she was excited too. "Can you get a picture?" We hung up, I grabbed the binoculars and the long lens, and I crept outside, all the while fighting off a determined Daisy, who has a similar interest in birdwatching.


And there he was, enjoying some tasty treat in the silver maple. At one point, he looked right back down at me. I thought he might fly away but perhaps he's used to humans with strange optical attachments. He just looked the other way, and continued eating.


I counted the bird, and my blessings, and left him to it.