birdwatching

Cedar Waxwings

      I began birdwatching the winter I turned ten.  The winter my brother and I both had a sickness they couldn't identify so they quarantined us (by February or March they figured out we had brucellosis) together in the house until spring.  My poor mother.  Bored, I would stand looking out the picture window in the dining room of our suburban ranch house for what seemed like hours.  It was probably ten minutes.  Eventually I began to notice the birds.  My dad got me a Roger Tory Peterson guidebook which I still have and binoculars.  The binoculars were a big help because although we didn't know it then, I needed glasses.  When I went back to school in the spring the letters on the blackboard were a blur.