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.
