I might as well put aside being a botanist again. It's all about the birds for today. For one thing, my yard has been full of birds; robins, orioles, wrens, hawks, great blue herons, and blue jays to start. More birds than usual and all singing loudly. Orioles nested in a tree right over my back door. I watched them build the nest, sit on the eggs, and raise their babies. Part of the reason for extra birds was from the disturbance of the sewer hookup. It takes a lot of digging to find and crush a whole septic system. All that fresh turned earth is full of beetles, seeds, and grubs.  

Wonderful bird sightings were not limited to my back yard, either. At work, a pair of robins built a nest on a windowsill, right outside one of our classrooms. We could see right into the nest, and saw the blue eggs gather in the nest until there were four. The robins would leave the nest if we looked out the window, so we put a piece of cardboard up. In due course, four little naked birds hatched, and we were privileged to watch from our front row seat as they quickly feathered out and grew into four new little robins.

However, the best bird I saw wasn't a songbird. I was in Harvard square after going to see the glass animals and flowers, and my eye caught movement above the church across the street from Harvard Yard. (I love saying that with my Yankee accent. I have made people laugh on two continents, pahking my cah theah.) A bird with a huge wingspan landed on the weather vane on top of the steeple, and stayed there, surveying the street below. It was a peregrine falcon, big as life and twice as handsome. I had never seen one before, and I couldn't keep my eyes off it. It stayed there on the weather vane, but I finally had to leave the area to go home. I would like to know if it nests in the area or if it was just passing through. I suppose I will never know.