the kingbird, the owl, the eider

this week a tropical kingbird perched by whatcom creek and the construction supply building and every day i received an email with a picture, his actions, the time, and exclamation marks—because birders are fond of such punctuation—and though i could not see it, i did. and somewhere in the county a barred owl perched thirty feet from-someone else's-door and i remembered the size of the owl’s claws, as when we saw one scouting for bullfrogs at stimpson two springs-two ages- ago. and there is always something like this: what was thought, for a moment or two, to be a spectacled eider was actually a long-tailed duck, still in breeding plumage. of course i sometimes, myself, will do this: see one thing one moment, and another the next.