water bird

ClareBroommaker's picture

Because sunshine make such a difference in how I feel each day, I make a point to get outside every day, however, this morning a big fire at a recycling business a few miles across the river filled the air with pollution. So today, I'm staying inside, standing every now and then near a sun-facing window to soak up a few rays. When I did that while eating my peanut butter on toast for lunch, I heard the chirp of raggedly musical bird, one I'm not familiar with. Despite the pollution, I opened the kitchen door to hear the chirp a little better.

"Errrrrt!" A few seconds later, "errrrt!". I told my husband that I did not recognize the bird, nor could I spot it, and that it must be a bird that is just migrating through, one that does not often stop for a visit. Ihe watery brief trill of its chirp suggested to me that it must be some kind of water bird. My hard of hearing husband could not hear the bird so did not take any interest.

I resumed putting away the dishes Joe had washed, and plunging laundry in the wash bucket, but kept hearing the bird every now and then. I went to the living room to check whether last night's laundry was dry. Even without my glasses on something red and white caught my eye out the big window that faces the big median parkway. This parkway is big enough that kids in the 1950s and 60s used to play baseball there, a woman who'd been a parent of that generation had told me 25 years ago.

I touched the laundry --it was dry-- and walked closer to the window to get a better view. Oh! The two coaches from the charter school down the street and their track team had set up general exercises and sprints in the parkway. The coaches had whistles in their mouths and directed a change in direction or a start and stop with intermittent "errrrrt!"s. Water bird, humph! It did remind me that I had been meaning to tell the coaches and kids that if they ever need water or an emergency shelter from weather they can come to us. The school is a few blocks away and they walk (run?) to get here so could get parched if their water bottles run dry.

The kids all seem very serious and the coaches both very light-hearted. We enjoy having them around once a week or so in spring and autumn. Youth, energy, determination, joy ---you know the stuff. I am kind of sorry they were running in such horrendous air pollution.