Solitary

Looks like I will be birding alone for the next few weeks, as my partner and teammate in the game will be stationed in a city far to the south of us. You know the one....full of folks who are full of hot air and bombast and keep the rest of us down on the farm as best they can.

I will not let it slow me down.....much...no matter how much I miss him. It is nearly May. Things are happening. Our acres don't feature the exotic wonders of some of the places we go on weekends...no Sandhill Cranes here.....but if you get up early enough you can watch the moon setting in the west while the sun rises behind the neighbor's woods to the east.I had been planning to get to the top of the Heifer Pasture hill before sunrise some day soon.

Today was the day. You see at o'dark thirty, sometime well before five, I was dreaming weirdly of being in an Amish home with my little helldog. Deeply, soundly, asleep. Suddenly, abruptly,  I was awakened by the sound of trotting horse's hooves and whinnying. I hustled downstairs thinking Sunny was out....and found Liz getting Jade off to work and Peggy thunder-rolling-in-the-mountains through the house, giggling and sounding a lot like a pony. It seemed like an omen.....

So I got dressed and got out there, just in time to hear a solitary Brown Thrasher FOY singing his paired almost-but-not-quite mockingbird song from the top of a nearby tree...He wasn't there yesterday.....if you play the video you can hear him and a turkey clucking in the background.

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