Dear Tweeters,

A funny thing happened to me while birding on Fir
Island this weekend. It is something that happens to
me several times a year, usually while birding alone.

I was driving along, lost in a reverie about the old
barn at our place near Lyman. "When springtime comes,"
I mused, "we'll probably have Barn Swallows nesting in
there. That'll be nice." I pictured them swooping in
and out of the various chinks and windows, bringing
food to noisy young in mud nests, and pooping all over
the various items we store in there.

In mid-reverie I looked up in time to see a flock of
Barn Swallows, the first I'd seen since late summer.

I had not been thinking about our current Barn Swallow
incursion at all--the point of my trip was to find the
Red-shouldered Hawk--so it was quite pleasant to savor
the seeming clairvoyance of the moment.

I am not referring to the predictions of birds that a
birder makes in visiting specific habitats to see
specific birds. For example, one often heads out to
the mudflats in expectation of seeing Dunlin or
Black-bellied Plover this time of year.

No, this is a different sort of thing. It is a birding
daydream, utterly disconnected from what is going on
in reality, suddenly finding itself mirrored in that
reality.

Just wondering if other birders experience this sort
of thing.

Yours truly,
Gary Bletsch
garybletsch at yahoo.com
Near Lyman, WA





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