The Boy opened his coat to access his many-zippered Jr. Ranger utility vest. Having located his compass, he put his camera and identification book back into their respective pockets, and closed his coat.
"Well, that's something..." Our friend mused when she caught sight of the vest.
"Sure is," I conceded.
"Somebody buys him these things..." She teased.
Au contraire. For the record: he bought the field vest entirely with his own money. Though, I might have bought him the kerchief that he had tied around his neck ascot-style.
But I was splitting hairs, or rather feathers. Once you're an out and proud birder the vest and neck accoutrement are really just so many details.
We have a friend from church who is really fun -- when her kids were growing up she was undoubtedly the cool mom on the block. Last Spring the kids took a day off of school and we went with her to Flatbush (Brooklyn) to check out the monk parrots that unexpectedly flourish there. She came equipped with some serious birdseed poundage that she lugged there (and -- the remaining -- back). Knowing that the kids like to watch for birds in Central Park, she suggested that we meet up and get rid of that extra birdseed that she's been storing. Today was the day.
We entered at West 72nd and headed to The Ramble. Judd the Red Chicken was sure that he could find the way to the bird feeders. In retrospect, he wasn't far off, but it's easy to overshoot the little hollow where they are and we ended up by Belvedere Castle. We looked out over the turtle pond and went inside to access the windy stone stairs that empty out at battlements. While there we asked a volunteer where the bird feeders are found. As a point of reference: they are in The Ramble by the Azalea Pond (a tiny pond that connects via a skinny waterway/creek to The Lake).
We overshot it again, but after asking a birder we eventually found it. It is a sweet little pond. Determined to rid herself of the birdseed, our friend encouraged Thing 1 and Thing 2 to start chucking it about. And they did. And the squirrels came and looked very satisfied with us. As we walked along to the little area where the bird feeders are I looked back at the mob of squirrels and wondered if they would follow us -- effectively making our group a collective Pied Piper of Central Park.
The bird feeders had the attention of some nice specimens -- a field scientist was leading a group of tourists who could not get their shutters to open and close fast enough. When I asked if they had spotted anything great one sang out enthusiastically: "We're from Europe! We think it's all great!" And she took her hundredth picture of a sparrow. Overall, we saw a nice sampling of birds today:
Red-tailed Hawk
Juncos
Mourning Doves
Goldfinch
Cardinals
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-winged Blackbird
Grackles
Blue Jays
Black-capped Chickadees
Tufted Titmouse
All of those links from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (which is a great resource -- we emailed them one time with a question about a duck we saw -- and they emailed right back) kind of make me snicker -- how many more ways can they write: "ehhh... common..." Oh, well. For our first time back out and looking since Autumn, it felt like a nice haul. And it was lovely to spend a couple of hours with a friend. We spoke about being a mother-in-law and she mentioned that she had great relationships with her daughters' husbands. One likes to test-drive cars that he will probably never buy, but she's game to ride shotgun. One likes to look at land for sale, so she goes along, listening to his dreams. I thought: Of course she does those things -- she just hauled around a toddler's weight in birdseed. She is the quintessential pal who supports the small adventures that can be found in day-to-day life. She is an example to me. I'm glad that our family benefits from her willingness to say, "Let's do it."
As we were heading home, we crossed the bridge and found some CP workers in the process of changing out the flowers.
Here's to validating daily adventures like bird spotting and flower potting. Here's to bird-nerds and pals and a girl who kept giggling: "Those are really happy squirrels."
