Waxwing

So often we only see the things we expect, and then all of a sudden something beautiful intervenes, and we find things we would have never thought of looking for. After years of seeing the same robins, barn swallows, sparrows and redwing blackbirds litter the suburbs, I stopped expecting to see new species. This evening, reading while walking, I noticed a small bird-shape hopping to and fro on a berry bush. Probably a scraggly blackbird, but I decide to take a second look. Surprise--it was a cedar waxwing.

Image from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

I have wanted to see this bird for years. I think she is one of the most beautiful birds in all of Minnesota--smaller than I expected, slender and tawny sleek, but with those surprising yellow-wax wingtips for which she is named. What a gift to see. Suddenly the milieu was absolutely filled with strange and wonderful new shapes flitting from tree to tree, perched on rooftops, swooping across the dusk.

And then I came home and my father forced me to watch an hour-long Chinese dating show he had taped so I could "get some ideas." He told me not to judge men based on their appearances. Too bad I think about men like I think about birds--the everyday types are never worth waiting around for. Just kidding!