Panther's Prodz

      Have you ever heard a sound that makes you sit up straight, stare at the walls or ceiling and act out the doggy head tilt? C'mon we have all had those moments. I had that moment on the morning of New Year's Eve.

     As I sat here reading through a plethora of news groups, blogs and those ever silly message boards – I heard a tweet. Not a tweet I'd heard before. We have gulls, morning doves, those nasty little freaky black birds and ducks, but this tweet didn't belong to any of my friendly neighborhood sources. After staring at the walls for more moments than I care to recount, I went to take a look out the kitchen window.

Now, I had my eyeballs on, so using the excuse of my being blind as a bat won't fly (no pun intended), but good lord it took me a good ten minutes of look – head tilt – look – listen – head tilt – glare – rinse and repeat, before I spotted this new little friend. Perched atop a fence post in my backyard neighbor's area sat this yellow tweeter. Strange – I've not seen such a yellow bellied critter. So... back to my seat I came to seek out the name of this little tweeter. A few misses later – and mr yellow tweeter just tweeting away – I located his heritage – Great Yellow Bellied Kiskadee. Neat little guy – I'll take a photo!

      Pffft – it's winter and all things move a bit slower in winter, right? Apparently I move slower, but mr yellow tweeter had other plans. I dug out the camera, ran to window for the photo op and bam – batteries need changing. Insert new batteries, get to the window and boom – mr yellow tweeter is missing in action. I stand there doing my listen – look – head tilt – rinse and repeat, for another ten minutes with no luck. Back to my chair and get the bright idea to find mr yellow tweeter on the great wide web. I find one on youtube and concoct the brilliant idea to lure mr yellow tweeter back within range using this found video – on ultra loud. Now here is where the family joins in with the look – head tilt action. Both the pug and the weiner are now staring at their crazy people parent and pulling off quite the synchronized head tilt. Just then, I hear mr yellow tweeter out back. No sooner do I get to the window and off he flies. Argh! Fast forward through another thirty minutes of head tilts, loud as all get out bird tweeting from the computer and my dashing to the window and FINALLY – the photo op moment we've all been waiting for. Several blurry snaps later and I present to you... Mr. Yellow Tweeter. Welcome to the neighborhood – I hope you aren't in a hurry to catch up with your flock. I rather enjoy hearing your tweet tweet as I sip my morning coffee.