We’d seen Cattle Egrets plenty, mostly on road trips through American farm country. Mainland American farm country.

These are cool birds but don’t give you a jolt. Like a Painted Bunting might, or a Pileated Woodpecker. They’re not as exciting as Bald Eagles or ghoulishly interesting as Black Vultures crowding a roadkill.

But wait. What if you see a Cattle Egret—bunches of them, not on mainland pastures but in the middle of the Pacific. Like, say, Hawaii?

Well, a two-fisted birdwatcher we know just returned from spending summer on a remote Hawaiian island. Kauaʻi, maybe? We didn’t catch the name and wouldn’t have known it if we had. But what we did catch was his report about making buddies with Cattle Egrets.

Yeah, as he moved his bovines around the land, he became friendly with these gawky, graceful and friendly birds, Cattle Egrets are of course simply egrets. Long legs, all that. Some cool and distinctive coloration, too. But they’re not fixated on hanging around water. They like cattle. And what’s weirder is that they made their way to Hawaii!

These birds are believed to have prospered in ideal stretches of African savannah and wildlands where they could follow big ungulates and eat the bugs these creature attracted and stirred up.

Somehow, Cattle Egrets spread around the world within the last 200 years or so! They’re pretty much everywhere now. We’ve seen ’em in America of course, but it blows our minds to think they’re also doing well on Pacific islands! Aloha, big guys.

Yes, Hawaii has more than surfers, luaus, hula dances, drums to bang and poi to eat (whatever that is). It’s got cattle farms. It’s got cows. And somehow, across oceans of ocean…it’s also got Cattle Egrets. We have this on good authority from a dude named Evan who spent summer cowboying out there on the open range–or rather the tropical isles. And he had pardners in the form of Cattle Egrets.

As they said in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”

…it’s inevitable that the natural sport of two-fisted birdwatching is changing, has changed, is gonna change.

Recently we innocently wondered: what if binoculars didn’t just show the bird we aim at, but also show its NAME! You know where this is going, right?

We checked, and of course such binoculars now exist.

(We’re usually the last to know, when it comes to tech stuff).

These “smart binoculars” show the bird you’re focusing on, with its name superimposed like a caption.

Amazing. Probably costly, too.

But not surprising. And this made us wonder…

In the 1820s, how did crusty old two-fisted birdwatchers react when regular binoculars became available?

The rawboned sport of identifying birds was changed forever. Improved and expanded. Some grumps probably said no to binoculars, as these things were possibly a kind of cheating. Most surely said—“I’m in.”

History repeats. Today we’re faced with using or not using “smart binoculars.” How do we feel about them?

Sorry. We can NOT think about this.

We’re going for a hike. We’ll take our old-fashioned binocs. And if they help us spot a bird we don’t know, we’ll break out the old bird book when we get home. It’s on a thing known as a bookshelf.

Meanwhile, the birds go about their business indifferent to us, cheerfully employing AI as they always have: Avian Intelligence.

The following, more or less, ran in this Viewpoints column a while back. Let’s see what we were writing and reading then. When, exactly? Fourth of July…fourteen years ago! 

What does two-fisted birdwatching have to do with science fiction? Two things: Not much. And a lot.

Not much…

Two-fisted birdwatching is about getting into the rugged, buggy, woodsy, overgrown, muddy wilderness. It’s about sometimes seeing bears and liking it. It’s about seeing birds, and knowing their names. It’s about going places alone, getting lost, scratched by thorns, and spending some time like you’re living on the frontier.

Two-fisted birdwatching has not much to do with time travel, UFOs, lost-world dinosaurs and leaps of imagination. Wait a second. Did we just say time travel…? Hold on.

A lot…

Two-fisted birdwatching is about time travel. And this rugged sport is also about dinosaurs, unidentified flying objects and imagination. Walk in the suburban wilds today, and you could be in a time machine. When no jet contrails are ruining the sky, it could be the 1800s, the 1600s, hell, it could be twenty thousand years ago. The place belongs to trees, bugs, animals and birds.

Walk the game trails. As long as you avoid human hikers, you’re living apart from time as we know it. It’s just “place.” And “time” is taking the day off. If that sounds like science fiction, well, cool.

And then there are dinosaurs! The latest information, including a story in National Geographic, reports that birds didn’t descend from dinosaurs; they are dinosaurs.

Look into the eyes of a Great Blue Heron if you can get close. Millions of years of saurian self-confidence will stare back at you. Look at the scaly claws, the bone structure. Birds equal dinosaurs. A classic sci-fi subject. Next: “Unidentified flying objects.” Do we really have to say more?

One final point: imagination. When you walk in the woods, your two fists wrapped around grubby binoculars, you think of things. You’re not always spotting birds. You think up stories. Sometimes they’re science fiction stories. Take a look at “The Ferruginous Hawk.” It came from the imagination of a guy walking in a birdless woods on a birdless day.

“Independence Day.”

Today is July 4th. Independence Day. That’s also the title of a classic sci-fi movie. We might re-watch it tonight. We like science fiction. And people who like it, too.

Sometimes science fiction fans are believed to be a little nerdy. An unfair image problem. Actually, they’re generally bright and interesting.

The public imagination has also thought of bird watchers as a little nerdy, too. Screw the public imagination. Two-fisted birdwatching zaps that image into another dimension.

You’ll keep going into wild places, and these places will be time machines. With flying dinosaurs you’ll identify and some that will remain UFOs. And, as you go where no one has gone before, you’ll know that your style of birdwatching has not much in common with sci-fi stories. And also a lot in common.

That sounds like a paradox. All the best time travel adventures are paradoxes.

Collecting, however, is definitely a thing you understand. For you, it’s bird sightings. Some people may laugh at that. Some laugh at stamp collecting, too.

What’s the need for collecting all about?

As a kid maybe you collected baseball cards or Star Wars figures. We know a rich guy who collects classic cars. Two-fisted birdwatching is not a hobby, or a science project, or a competition—not really. You know it for what it is: collecting.

The first time you saw a rare bird, that was fun. You added it to your collection, a growing, private life list. A kick. Maybe you’ve wondered about the arcane passion of stamp collecting. It’s big for some people, a mere curiosity for others.

What triggered this musing is a postage stamp with a bird. When you saw it recently, it stopped you cold. It features a favorite old painting by Monet. Not bad art, maybe, but the coolest thing about this painting is its title: “The Magpie.”

Cool because the expansive winter-scape shown does not feature the bird. Its magpie is merely a quiet small dot off to the side. Yet Monet knew—and we know—that this dot dominates the whole snowy scene. It’s both tiny and huge.

It names the painting!

Apparently the country of Monaco thought so much of this awesomely titled painting that they put it on one of their postage stamps. You saw it recently, and it stopped you cold.

You get it—you get that Monet got it. And that Monaco gets it. Next time you see a Magpie you’ll collect another sighting and think of the stamp. Does that make you a stamp collector?

On a Saint Patrick’s Day years ago, we put a piece in Viewpoints called “A Bird Watcher in Ireland.”

It shared impressions of the place and some pictures—one of a violinist that didn’t go unnoticed. But we were less than enthusiastic about two-fisted birdwatching there.

And yet the Emerald Isle is such a two-fisted spot!

When entering a pub, it’s a fine idea to shout into the room, “God bless every one in this place!” Then power your way to the bar. Now that’s a proper Irish entrance.

But what about a proper avian adventure there?

Not much to expect, sorry to say. Ireland has relatively few native birds because it’s an island. But here’s an upbeat way to accept that fact…

Simply take the view that each bird sighting is a pretty big deal. Because there just aren’t that many.

“Irish Stonechat. That’s big.”

When you’re in America, you’ve got around 1,000 breeding species to spot. But in Ireland, there are maybe 150, although estimates in both places vary.

So if you see, say, one of Ireland’s own “Stonechats,” hell, that’s big.

Too much variety can de-sensitize you. Less variety can make what you find…more of a find.

So, with this in mind, Ireland’s a fine place for bird watchers. It’s not just about pubs, music, friendly people and awesome green landscapes. It’s also about rare birds. Because there, most of them are.

Bless every one of them in this place! And Happy Saint Pat’s Day!

Only a contrarian would say winter is the best season. And that it’s actually better to hike around looking for birds in winter than any other season.

But who cares. Who even knows the word contrarian?

Cold weather and brutal single-digit winds that burn your eyes and nose make birding more stimulating. Not because of your discomfort. But because of how you feel about the birds you see.

Chicago’s winter birds are a lot like characters you went to high school with in this tough city. Sandburg’s hog-butchers. We’re talking toughness.

You ignore the cold. Ignore the tears and snot. And you get a soul-satisfying appreciation of undaunted sparrows and woodpeckers. Chickadees and nuthatches. Juncos, blue jays and shocking red cardinals.

There are even shy deer, inquisitive coyotes and nutty squirrels. All the living wild characters of our freezing woods and prairies. What’s cool about them is they don’t complain about the cold.

They don’t go around bundled in dorky scarves, hats, parkas, earmuffs and clunky boots. They go around au naturel, as always.

These are fierce and hardy wild beasts. And a reassuring statement that “we’re not alone.” Not alone in the woods, or on the changing planet. We’ve got the birds. When it’s freezing as well as when it’s not.

They stay, they last, they live. These little souls that show big guts because c’mon, it can’t be comfortable to spend 24 hours a day in this week’s below zero wind-chill, but they do it.

We see in them more than guts. But gusto. Joy of living. That’s their nature. They ARE nature. And they’re cool. Especially when it’s this damn cold!

It was an early wintry day, much like this one. Gray, cold, and like winter itself: early. A demanding day just starting, in a demanding time of life.

Early rising, a shaved face, a hurried departure in an era when guys rushed out of modest homes while pretty wives were giving breakfast to fussing kids and these guys fired up modest cars and sped off toward jobs where phones were already ringing and bosses would be grumbling and then….SCREECH!!!….it all comes to a stop.

Why! A red light? A police emergency? The forgetting of a wallet and the realization that this trip needs a quick reversal to get it? No. Nothing to do with traffic or forgetfulness.

Everything stops because of a flash of yellow, black, brown and white glimpsed in front of another modest home on that block. But what causes the sudden stop is not modest. It is—you know this, while most guys might not—an Evening Grosbeak.

Okay, those who aren’t two-fisted birdwatchers with a lifelong belligerent interest in ornithology are groaning. They’re thinking that this narrative about a guy running to a mundane job in a mundane life on a mundane November morning was a build-up to a foolish payoff. A freakin’ bird?

Hell, yeah! The guy who rushed to his necessary, sometimes tedious but sometimes kinda fun job if truth be told, knew one thing that a lot of other guys didn’t: An Evening Grosbeak. It’s worth stopping everything to see. Not in a forest of wilderness, evergreens and undergrowth, deadfall, deer and coyote tracks and fresh clean cold wild air…but on a homey side street.

That bird. That bird that’s not a routine sparrow or even a robin who stays in the cold these days, or a famous winter junco—which not everyone knows, but they’re pretty common. No…this is a big, unmistakable, unmissable, badass of a winter visitor, an EVENING GROSBEAK.

And it is not forgotten. Not the bird, not the day back in the day when all this happened, not the screech of brakes, not the willingness to be late for work, not the yellow and brown and black SIZE of that grosbeak, not its big GROSS beak, either.

That all stays. Just another good thing about being and having been and continuing to be a two-fisted birdwatcher.

And now, a million years later, you’re heading into the nearby woods far from that simple street, and without an impatient job waiting…and you’re going to take your two-fisted binocs and you’re going to look for Pine Siskins and other seasonal birds this day has up its sleeve, but especially you’re going to look for that yellow and black and brown and gross-beaked Evening Grosbeak.

Out there in the fields and trees on this cold day you might just see one, but even if you don’t you’ve got one in the bank. And you smile recalling it all. Here’s to winter and the birds of winter!

You see birds at the feeders in your yard. Sorry. It’s not two-fisted birdwatching. It’s too-easy birdwatching.

If you see a woodpecker on a feeder that’s okay, but if you see one in the woods, that counts more. You know this.

What you might not know is that underneath your two-fisted attitude lurks a heart that can feel sorry for a squirrel under certain conditions.

Squirrels, otherwise known as “damn squirrels,” are the enemy of feeder-watching. No matter how you try to baffle them, they find ways of getting at your seeds, and suet too. One recently disassembled a suet cage and left it on the ground for you to find in the morning.

You kinda hate them. Even though feeder watching is too tame to be called two-fisted, you indulge a bit. So what’s with that “feeling sorry” comment?

Yesterday the big daddy of all squirrels was sitting on your suet cage after working his way down a skinny pole. Couldn’t have been easy, but he wanted what he wanted.

You rap on the window, and he glowers back. Then he takes another defiant bite of suet as the feeder rocks under his weight.

You’d noticed a red-headed woodpecker waiting a turn in the distance. But he wasn’t gonna get close.

You’re a little sore at that rat of a rodent and you stalk out the back door with a bang, headed for the suet.

He sees you coming, and to him you’re a mad monster who’s a hundred times larger so the little guy jumps a mile, falls off, and hits the ground. Hard.

He lands on all fours okay, but the thing is, you HEARD the “thwack” that landing made. Squirrel feet meeting unyielding earth.

“Ouch,” you say aloud to your surprise. The squirrel freezes, stunned. That was a DROP.

Oddly you’re uncharacteristically worried. A moment ago, you hated this thief, but now you’re feeling sorry.

As you near, he scurries quickly away. Was he hurting? Was his bell rung? You figure—hell, yeah. How do you feel? Bad! Guilty. Worried. Sorry. Empathetic.

Not two-fisted. Too-worried.

C’mon, you think, the poor guy just wanted free suet. It cannot be explained to him that it’s there for birdwatching, not a squirrel’s snack.

All you know is that you scared the crap out of a tiny creature and caused him to drop a distance that would equal a ten-story building to a human.

You say to the universe: my apologies! I’m NOT going to scare squirrels anymore. If one wants a little suet—big freakin’ deal.

Shouldn’t we be saying “smartest bird in the wild?” Not if we’re talking about a magpie. A Black-billed Magpie residing in a Rocky Mountain town at this moment.

It was in a room.

And because it was smart it hopped out of that room on cue. Dr. Bob, a sometime contributor of sharp bird photos here, recently related this experience. He pointed out that magpies are super smart. Something to do with brain-body ratio. Like in the same ballpark as great apes.

We normally focus on their outside stuff, the colorful field markings, long tail and that haughty strut we get from magpies and others in its high-IQ family—known as “Corvids.” (Crows, ravens, jays, you know.) These guys are smart. And they know it.

Recently, in Dr. Bob’s “room” there was a Black-billed Magpie who’d hopped through an open patio door and made himself welcome. He knows that Bob’s got a soft spot for Corvids and conversed about a snack. (We have the audio.) Bob suggested some popcorn and the magpie verbalized, “Hell yeah, buddy.” You don’t need to be a linguist to know that’s what was chirped.

(Same thing happened to this reporter in a different time and place—involving negotiations about potato chips in Rocky Mountain National Park, and the magpie there convincingly communicated, “Come on, nobody can eat just one!”)

Magpie vocalization is clearly, eerily, like “talk.” Not parrot mimicry; parrots are cool but mainly imitate. Magpies are conversationalists. After Dr. Bob’s neighborly bird hopped through that open door. Bob said to his wife, “Honey, there’s a magpie in our family room.”

She yelled back, “Not for long, he isn’t!” The literate magpie didn’t need to hear more. He quickly hopped back out before any territorial female stalked in with a broom.

From the patio, he looked up at Dr. Bob, saying: “Your lady of the house has kicked me out—bummer. But no worries, guy, I’ll be back.” Then it flew away. The smartest bird in the room had left the building.

You gotta say that to yourself every once in a while, in life, but especially in two-fisted birdwatching. Actually those two things have a lot in common—life and two-fisted birdwatching—but we’ll let that ride ’til another day.

For now, the point is that as you walk your trail through woods and fields, the way ahead draws with hypnotic force. You keep looking, keep walking. You remember times when that kind of forward searching yielded great finds.

You saw a Pileated Woodpecker up ahead and didn’t scare it off. That was a first. Maybe there’s another first waiting around the bend. Keep moving forward, you think, keep your eyes open and your binocs in those rugged fists of yours.

Hell, that’s how you saw an American Woodcock in the trailside leaf litter, pretty unusual but not uncommon with luck. And also, once, up ahead there was an ancient-looking Great Horned Owl on a branch overhanging the trail. You had the feeling he was waiting, and you made eye contact.

Up ahead—that’s where the good stuff is. And that’s where you’re wrong. That’s the point of this post. Look out behind you! C’mon, birdlife inhabits our environment in a sphere and you’re the center of it—a 360-degree, 3-D hunting ground, so why limit yourself?

Okay, it’s only human not to like backtracking, but the truth wisely learned (the owl can confirm this) is that after you tramp through a zone of wildlands, birds and other animals you missed seeing quickly return, filling the space behind you like a vacuum.

So turn around—look behind you—it works. The late wildlife writer and desert philosopher, Ed Abbey, (see our Two-Fisted Library) once turned behind him in an Arizona canyon and found a mountain lion tracking him. Cool.

On my trail today—on the hike that prompted all this—I remembered to spin around and, yeah, there was a bird I hadn’t seen on the way in. What was it? It wasn’t a “first,” but it was a good, colorful sighting that kinda made the day, and I’m really glad I turned around.

Also, it gave me the idea of sharing with you this simple philosophy—”look out behind you!” I’ll discuss that cool bird in another post. For that—keep looking ahead. And good birding, all around!

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has a wild amount of wilderness. Bears, wolves, Eagles, Pileated Woodpeckers. And the quiet you get when there are few roads.

I went for a hike there in the million-acre Ottawa National Forest. Got a map and traveled light, only binoculars. The way is marked by diamond-shaped blue symbols mounted on trailside trees or rocks.

Deer flies didn’t matter at first. But after a while bug spray quits. Bites bleed. I thought about Stanley’s hike through the Congo. He had it worse. No malaria in the North Woods.

I went on, assuming the “trail” remains a foot path. But it soon blends into undergrowth. Still, every so often you see those blue diamond-shaped markers. When you reach one, you could just make out the next, some distance away.

In an hour, it gets difficult. You hit an imaginary point of no return. And you want to return. But looking back, the diamonds are hard to see. You could get lost.

You don’t go back; the exit from this trail must be ahead and soon. An hour later, maybe two, you’re sweating, bug bit and haven’t seen birds, animals, or the end of the trail.

Lack of wildlife sightings in deep woods is typical. If you were in a 100-acre preserve near Chicago you’d see many birds. Often, deer, maybe a fox or snake. But in a million acres of indifferent wilderness it’s quiet.

There are bears around somewhere, wolves and every kind of boreal bird. Probably cougars and bobcats. But you don’t see them. Maybe they see you. Maybe they see a guy who’s getting lost.

An hour further, and I must be near the road. My map says so. I think. There’s an opening, light coming through trees ahead. It’s the road for sure. I speed up. Gotta get away from the biting flies.

I want to smell car exhaust. Want a roadhouse burger and a beer. Many beers. I move through the trees, running the last few steps. And come out into the open. But no road.

I was on the side of a mountain. Way up, on a narrow ledge. Above a forest that sprawled to the horizon like a green ocean. I looked down. A hawk with wide wings hung in the air far below me.

It was a Red-shouldered Hawk, not that identification mattered then. But when you know something, you name it. Had to aim the binoculars down, between my boots, past the lip of the ledge.

The sun was burning on me, and on the hawk, highlighting the big bird’s red-brown wingspan. Interesting. But where was I? The hawk twisted its tail and banked away, far below.

I looked at my hands. They were gripping binoculars, hard. Like fists. I was pissed. I had walked out of the woods, but now stood on an escarpment. I checked the map. Yeah, it was there. A wavy line.

I scanned my ledge, realizing it must be part of the trail. Saw a blue diamond on a distant rock. Could barely make it out. I looked at my fists side-by-side gripping the binoculars. The tough-guy phrase “two-fisted” came to mind.

I figured, c’mon, man, move out. I hiked to the blue diamond, then found the next one, back into the woods. Two-fisted hiking. It had been good to see that hawk below the ledge.

An hour or so later, maybe more, I found a gap in the trees. There was the road. A logging truck came grinding along. Dumb luck. The friendly driver let me ride on back. I sat against logs that smelled of sap.

I was scratched, bitten up and sweaty. I turned my hat around and let the wind blow in my face. I’d thought about fists grasping binoculars. Figured that having a two-fisted attitude was the only way to go.

Hell, I’d been higher than a hawk out there.

~

If you were reading our stuff 14 years ago, the above true tale might be familiar. It appeared as a longer 2-part adventure and generated fun comments. With much time past, and many new readers, we revisit the event that gave rise to our name

In fact this tech-age portmanteau is just the kind of word that makes you want to lose yourself in wilderness.

You’ve also had it with “Zoom.” Zoom is what a Cooper’s Hawk does when it bursts out of hiding.

There’s no spam in the woods. And no chargers. Unless you glimpse a coyote and know from its healthy coat that it’s done plenty of charging.

There’s no Bluetooth in the woods, but you’ve got blue jays.

The woods are where you go to get away from digital bullshit. You don’t have to update a tree.

No need to recharge that Rose-breasted Grossbeak—he’s the one who’s recharging you.

When you’re tired of texting and the shorthand of its tiny language you gotta get away.

Go where you can stand in a forest and have no way to tell if it’s now or a hundred years ago. Or a thousand.

A place outside of time where phishing is just a misspelled word. Webinar that!

Summer starts with Memorial day and ends with Labor Day. in between there’s Independence Day. The calendar is full of such “Days.” Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, St. Pat’s Day, MLK Day. To say nothing of various religious “Days.” And Thanksgiving, a 4-day forced march.

But there’s a better holiday to celebrate: “Ordinary Day.”

It outshines all others because, like a true friend, Ordinary Day asks nothing of you but that you be yourself. No obligations, no expectations. And you can observe it whenever you like.

Wake when you always wake. Banter with loved ones in the ordinary way. If you grumble about going to work, fine, grumble. Put on the same ordinary clothes and take the ordinary commute.

“Ordinary. Cool.”

Glance with ordinary interest at an ordinary sparrow doing its ordinary hop. For lunch, grab the usual in the usual joint. For dinner, maybe hit the neighborhood restaurant where the usual server predicts your order.

At home, walk the dog on the same old path. Watch the same TV shows from the same spot on the couch. Later, fall into bed at the same time and get sleepy reading the same kind of book.

On days when things are NOT ordinary, you’ll enjoy knowing that at least you have your own special holiday. Say to yourself, your family—and anyone else who shares this knowledge: “Happy Ordinary Day! And many more.”

~

The above appeared in slightly different form in the paperback, “SEVENTY-SEVEN COLUMNS,” a collection of published newspaper pieces by one of our writers. Published by Birdwatcher Books Copyright © 2017.

The dog keeps barking. You get up to see what’s going on. You could be at your computer typing something like this. You could be in bed. Could be day or night. The dog barks a lot.

Amazon delivery? Since the pandemic these have become common. Maybe a neighbor’s walking by? Or an animal? There’s a forest preserve nearby. A two-fisted birdwatcher likes that.

But your dog’s not going to bark at a Junco. He was quiet when a Red-shouldered Hawk sat on your backyard swing, a sight that made you feel like barking.

Back to the moment. Mystery solved. Two deer are out front. Meat on the hoof, according to wolf DNA programmed into your ten-pound poodle. You clip a leash on him—time for a bathroom break anyway—and you move outside.

The deer are winter-hungry and want to stay where foliage pokes through the snow. You stare at each other. The dog barks and pulls. They prance off, toward the neighboring forest preserve you appreciate every freakin’ day. You recall another recent visitor…

You were starting your sunrise dogwalk, leash in hand (good thing) when your dog bolted. He pulled so hard his front legs rose and he stood vertical, straining forward. At the bottom of your driveway going eye-to-eye with him was a giant coyote. We’ve seen coyotes here but never one this big. He’s staring back with interest, not running off as usually happens.

Our poodle seemingly wants to attack. You realize that if you accidentally lose your grip on the leash, hell could happen fast. The coyote holds your eye for a moment then trots off, ignoring you and the little white curiosity that would have made a quick breakfast.

What a great sighting. Not a deer. Not an Amazon guy. And it hits you. All those times when you don’t look outside to see what causes the barking. It’s wildlife you never see. Deer of course. But coyotes, too. That monster and others. The neighborhood has lots of them. Until the 1980s these prairie wolves were relegated to cowboy movies, not cities and burbs. But they’re here now.

Probably the reason for much of the barking. That’s okay. You don’t mind. Whether caused by an Amazon delivery, or something wilder, it’s just the ordinary sound of an ordinary day, and you smile at your ten-pound dog who thinks he’s a badass.

It must have happened. Picture it. You’re in prehistoric times. Cave people rubbing their eyes, waking up to the possibilities of intelligent thought. Looking around. Thinking. Wanting. Imagining…. one of them sees a bird. What’s the first thing this early human is thinking? (After “wonder what it tastes like”…).

That early human is thinking, “Jeez, wish I could fly like that!” There’s a tentative flapping of hairy arms, innocent hoping, resounding disappointment. Flap all you want, Grork, messy hair ain’t feathers. And you ain’t getting off the ground ‘til you get smart enough to invent aviation.

Prehistory repeats itself with human kids throughout time. A child of today sees a bird and thinks (after “wonder what it tastes like”)… “Jeez, wish I could fly!” There’s a tentative flapping of chubby arms. Disappointment repeats itself through the millennia.

The beautiful reality of avian life, and surely one of the factors behind the universal human need to become two-fisted birdwatchers…is that birds are built to fly. We have envied them through the ages, and that includes this morning…

You’re in your car at a stop sign near a suburban park. A Canada Goose calmly walks across the road in front of you. So you wait. He casually puts one clown-sized foot in front of the other. Step, step. You gotta wonder, “Why does a goose cross the road?”

This is NOT a reference to the old chicken joke. You’re in no mood for jokes. It’s an honest question. You think: hell, if you had wings you sure wouldn’t walk. You’d have flown to where you’re going. You’d have eyeballed the whole city from a bird’s-eye view just for fun. You’d have climbed high. Soared like a Top Gun jet. Banked, swooped, power-dived …A “honk” behind you! Not a goose. A driver in a car. This breaks your flight of imagination.

The guy’s wondering why you’re not moving. You realize the goose in front of you has now waddled to the curb and is off the road. You hit the gas. As you drive away, you muse about a curious fact of nature…

There are no animals, other than birds and humans, that walk on two legs. How can species that are so biologically different—we’re mammals and they’re hatched—be the only ones to have “bipedalism?” You try to imagine if there are any other bipeds. Kangaroos? No, they use tails and front legs sometimes. Apes? They’re not built for walking. Forget it.

Chalk it up to just another curious fact of life on Planet Earth. Where you’re stuck on the ground.

As a little kid, you were interested in birds. You liked wild things, wild animals, things that could fly, whatever. So you got interested and learned the names of birds.

But as a teenager you were too cool for that. You lost interest. Bird watching seemed geeky, something a little kid did with innocent enthusiasm. You were done with it.

Then, on a trip to upstate New York as a young husband and father, you surprised yourself. You were on vacation with a wife and two small sons, staying with your wife’s schoolhood girlfriend. You weren’t very sociable, and neither was the girlfriend’s husband. You shot driveway hoops and lazed around, bored.

One afternoon you went for a hike alone in a swampy area and saw a Yellowthroat. Small, with a black eye-mask. You mumbled, “Yellowthroat.” Then thought: “how did I know that?” You shook off the question.

Vacation over, you went back to the Midwest. Time passed. You worked. Your kids grew. Birds went largely unnoticed. Life happened. Then one afternoon you and your wife were walking your dog on a nature trail near a wetland. An unusual bird caught your eye. You mumbled, “Killdeer.”

Surprised, you thought, “how did I know that?” A kind of sandpiper. It was standing tall in shallow water and bright sun. Head high—a bird with good posture and stripes on its neck. You said again “Killdeer.” Wife and dog turned to look at you.

You remembered seeing your first Killdeer in a swampy prairie when you were eleven. You remembered how it was known for its trick of leading you away from its nest by pretending to have a broken wing. An odd fact.

You all moved on down the trail. But you looked more closely into the trees. On your way out of the woods you noticed in passing a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet, a Swainson’s Thrush, a Great Blue Heron out on the wetland through the trees. In the far sky a Red-tailed Hawk was circling.

You thought that sometime soon you might come back here. Maybe you’ll see a Scarlet Tanager. Deep red, exotic. That would be a real find.

And the thought hit: for a long while you were done with birds, but maybe they’re not done with you.

Thanks to a guy named Thoreau, you might find yourself muttering in your mind something about a word that doesn’t exactly fit into a two-fisted lexicon and that word is “blessing.”

As another old-timer would have said, it doesn’t “roll up its sleeves, spit on its hands and get to work”. (Sandburg, writing about “slang”). Back to Thoreau. (You forget his first two names for a moment—guys of that era often went by a mouthful, no worries, they’ll hit later when you stop trying).

Back to excuse-making for the less than rugged word, “blessing.” But screw such self-editing. Thoreau said this: “An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.”

Two-fisted or not, that sticks in the mental library if early morning walks are a routine part of your routine. And if you have a dog who needs a daily reminder that he’s house trained, you get him the hell outside early. Like “still kinda dark.” “Crepuscular” early. A ritzy word also not in any two-fisted lexicon.

But forget about whether a word has muddy boots, and just say what’s going on. Like: every freakin’ morning at dawn, you’re out there walking the pooch. Watching the eastern sky lighten over the trees sometimes in orange glow and other times in silver, and you say: hell, Henry David, you nailed it.

An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. If the word fits, wear it. You do feel blessed to see the day start, dark then light. It’s blessedly quiet, too, and in all seasons dawn smells good. And you see birds. Sometimes deer. Once in a while a coyote stares before turning with a shrug and trotting off.

This morning, on your early morning walk, there was suddenly a silent presence moving over you and your dog, a flying machine of commanding size, owning the sky, stamping an image into your day…and you know it was a Great Blue Heron rising for reasons of its own, powerfully, soundless wingbeats putting a mark on the moment and disappearing.

You don’t want to recite in your mind that quote from Thoreau, but it floats undeniable as the heron, low and quiet. Even your downward-sniffing dog has looked up, all eyes, which you read as unlikely canine “awe” but you believe it. And get on with your day, silently thanking Mr. Thoreau for his insight and the heron for his wingspan and the dog for being the reason you’re out there on an “early morning walk.”

Say it’s back in the middle of the last century. You’re a kid who likes jungle stories and wild places. You hang out in a prairie south of Chicago.

It’s got an industrial taint since there are adjacent factories and dumps. But, hell, Illinois is the Prairie State, and you can’t quash its elemental nature.

It’s a place of birds, snakes, and adventure. Even though you’re a roughneck, your interest in wild things gives you names for what you see. They’re not just birds; they’re Red-winged Blackbirds.

Or Bobolinks and Green Herons. Sometimes yellow Meadowlarks capture your attention while your friends are looking under flat rocks for coiled snakes, and finding them.

You’re a kid who reads about wild things. The general view is that nature will lose out to human overgrowth. Birds will get scarcer as you get older.

One day, after a rain, there’s a swamp in your prairie.

In it, floats a lone Canada Goose. A big, unusual bird for that time and place.

Word spread, and soon a man parks a pickup and wades into the water carrying a shotgun.

He shot a wing right off, and the bird swam in circles, making small cries.

Seeing this as a sad kid you figured the birds of nature wouldn’t have a chance in their ongoing competition with humans.

Today, you’re not a kid. You live in a citified suburb outside the big, smoking city of Chicago. You walk the dog, and—irony of ironies—there are healthy Canada Geese all over the place.

At least two mated pairs are on your lawn. They saunter off, unconcerned, as you get near. You’re not worth the effort it would take to fly out of the yard.

The irony is heavy, just like the bodies of these big geese.

Back when you were a kid, you figured they had no future. Now it’s the science-fiction year of 2016, and the place is full of goose droppings.

Geese aren’t just in residential neighborhoods. There’s a big shopping mall nearby, and geese are in pairs on the cement parking lot. They nest under lampposts in the mall’s gardens.

Ironically, geese are here today with a vengeance.

As some character says in Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”

Groups of geese are called “gaggles” according to quaint terminology.

And when flying, they’re called “skeins,”

A gaggle of geese. Or a skein of geese. Both phrases are outdated. You’ve got a better one.

It comes to you as you look out the window. There’s a group on the lawn now, grazing. An “irony of geese.”

You get the paper from the bottom of your driveway on this winter morning.

Heading back, you notice that heavy icicles hang from your roof. They look like downward-pointing swords high above the doorstep.

But more about them in a moment…

“4 points!”

Inside, from a kitchen window you notice the backyard bird feeders.

They’re busy, and you stop to watch. An idea hits.

You assign points to the birds you see.

Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Blue Jays: four points.

Cardinals and White-breasted Nuthatches, three.

Downy Woodpeckers and Song Sparrows, two. Slate-colored Juncos, one. You get bonus points for a deer that joins the seed-eating, its breath steaming.

It occurs to you that the word ‘point’ is used in a lot of games. Why?

Did ancient athletes poke opponents with sword points, and each point counted?

Maybe the word ‘point’ then evolved to measure scoring in other kinds of contests.

Something to wonder about. But the thought of swords and points reminds you of those icicles.

You leave the house and go out front. You bring your basketball from the cold garage. It’s rock hard.

You shoot the ball toward the roof. A high, arching jump shot.

Bam, it smashes the longest icicle, knocking it down.

Heavy ice splatters the steps.

Hey, a three pointer.

There are more icicles. You assign points to them.

A three. A two. You shoot. You score.

This is fun. You’ve got ice points in the front. Bird points in the back. Let’s hear it for winter sports.