Flowers and Birds

The year after my father passed the kids and I planted some pink and blue forget-me-nots at the cemetery.  The spring following that pink and blue forget-me-nots appeared in our yard.  I had blue ones in a totally different location and thought that it was highly unlikely that they spread from there only to this space.  Then they disappeared from that spot.  This spring they turned up again, across the macadam from where I found them the last time and again away from where they were supposed to be, on the other side of the house.  

In front of the fence, where I had originally found them, was now a single pink and white tulip.  I have never planted tulips there and we haven't had tulips in the yard for just about 30 years because the deer love to eat them.  This baffled me, but then I realized that I found that tulip the night before what would have been my father's birthday so I feel certain that he had something to do with it's magical appearance.  

Two things, well maybe we'll call it three, happened last Thursday - National Bird Day.  As I was getting out of my car at school, one of the teachers pointed out to me this bird that she had been watching attack the side mirror and windshield of the other secretary's car in the parking lot. We both watched it for a few minutes and laughed at it's antics.  The bird, it turns out, was attacking all the mirrors in that particular section of the lot.  (Today I found it on my car when I was leaving.)  It's a catbird and he must be seeing himself in the mirror and thinking it's an intruder into his territory. (Not my car in the picture.)

But earlier that particular morning I had been standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window and because I was used to seeing black, white, and red birds at the feeder in the form of woodpeckers and flickers, I almost missed realizing that there was a totally new bird there that I had never seen before.  A male rose-breasted grosbeak - a member of the cardinal family.  I held my breath as I reached for my camera hoping that by the time I got it ready the bird would still be there.  Lucky I was that he hadn't flown away so I could get some pictures, even if they're a little shaky. 

Isn't he beautiful!  I haven't seen him since but I hope to!

Oh, and the third thing - quite silly really - since it was bird day, and chicken day at that, and since our students had just finished four days of standardized testing (PARCC), I played them out of the school with the chicken dance over the loudspeaker and everyone got a good laugh.