Two seconds. That’s all it takes. At the trailhead you get a feel for what’s in the woods, what you’re going to see. You know it’s going to be active. Or quiet.

Today was warm. I figured there’d be a lot of birds in the trees. Early migrants. Excited residents. Activity.

The trees were dead. No sound. No movement. Nothing. If I walked for an hour it would be the same story. I walked anyway. It’s good to be in the woods.

And I thought, it’s funny how you know right away. Like when you size up a person. You like the guy or trust the girl. Your first impression is right. There’s a book about this called “Blink” by Malcom Gladwell. But we’re not here to talk about books.

We’re here to share a simple idea: Maybe birds come in schools.

Like fish. When snorkeling in the ocean you see areas of blank water, then clusters of fish. Schools. Maybe it’s like that with birds.

Maybe a school drops into my patch of woodland. Or it doesn’t. On days when it does, I see birds. All kinds. On days when the school passes by, the woods are quiet.

An unusual thought. Unscientific maybe. So what. It’s just a wild idea. But it works. Sometimes there’s nothing much to see, and sometimes there is.

As an aside, on this warm day of no activity I did see one unexpected, out-of-place bird. A Double-crested Cormorant, flying fast with jerky wings. It didn’t belong around here. Yeah, there’s a river not far, but cormorants are rare.

Even on slow days, there’s usually something to see. Like this odd duck. This odd cormorant. Cutting class, maybe. Because school was clearly not in session.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 4:52 pm and is filed under "Daily Sightings" A Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.