I walked down the path thinking of work-a-day things: dinner menus, job applications, shopping lists, when I saw a small small movement to the side. I tried, as usual, to take a picture, and as usual, I failed.
But here it is, a tiny brown bird with a big beautiful voice, the Pacific Wren, formerly known as the Winter Wren. And then all of a sudden birds were all around me: a pileated woodpecker in the distance, a downy woodpecker in the alder above me. chestnut-backed chickadees on the bushes, and ruby-crowned kinglets and golden-crowned kinglets darting in and out of the sword ferns. It was as if I had passed through a magic door, and the quiet, winter-drab woods had come to chirping life.
No decent pictures though. My big mammal hands and eyes were too slow.
I did come across a handsome pair of fox sparrows in the meadow, on the way back.
