I have a young friend, not quite three, who comes over from time to time to
watch birds out my window. She is just tall enough to see over the window
sill into the area where our feeder is set up. She can talk, well sort of,
and has her own delightful words for birds, which she can clearly
discriminate between (which is way more than I was ever doing at her age)
She loves the little birds that come to the feeder, which she calls dee
dees, a variant on chickadee I assume. She calls varied thrushs, fairies and
my favorite is her name for Stellars jays which she calls hop hops. Oh yeah,
she also calls Pine Siskins, sisters, and gets very excited by the largish
flocks of them that show up, yelling sisters, sisters, sisters. . When she
sees a bird she does not know she asks, whazat? Her mother and I are both
amazed at her attention span at the window as she can stand for 15 minutes
at a time and just stare and call out delightedly to the birds.

Today I was washing dishes as she asked, whazat? and pointed to a weird lump
in the arbor behind the feeder. I could not figure it out, it was big enough
to be a small hawk but totally the wrong shape, kind of roundish. I thought
for a minute maybe it was a grouse or something perched in an odd place. I
got my binoculars (Bikenoolars) focused and it turned into a pygmy owl, in
broad daylight, holding onto a chickadee in its talons, sort of turned
sideways, which accounted for the odd profile. My toddler friend and I both
jumped up and down and chanted owl, owl, owl together. What a cool
surprise.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com