I Heard It Before I Saw It
It was a slightly overcast end to the day, an early evening on the coast. I was taking out the trash - the last thing I expected was a moment of wonder.
Then I heard the call for the first time in a year - it could only be a hooded oriole.
An Unlikely Birder
In college, my frosh roommate was a combination of descriptions that I thought could not exist in the same person, back before I knew more people like him to who comfortable in their skin: a longish-haired, flannel-clad guy who spent portions of each summer during high school following the Grateful Dead on tour; a private prep school kid who played lacrosse, shared poetry that moved him and laughed aloud while reading Catch-22; the son of a regional Audubon Society official who introduced me to the Peterson Field Guides to birds even as the faint whiff of pot clung to his clothes.
I came home one spring break, dusted off the pair of binoculars I'd received as a high school graduation gift from my aunt and uncle years earlier, and purchased my own Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds.
Dad liked to walk with me on my visits home, and when I began to bring binoculars on our walks, he bought a pair and made birding a shared pursuit.
One of the highlights of my walks with dad became the annual spring glimpses of orange-gold that let us know the hooded orioles had returned to build a nest in a towering pair of palm trees along our street.
It became how we marked the passage of time, my asking him on calls home in later years whether he'd seen the hooded orioles on his walks through the neighborhood.
When dad grew ill, between the time he no longer had the strength to make it up our driveway (much less walk) and the time he began to require oxygen, a small miracle occurred.
The hooded orioles, which we'd only ever seen in the palm trees where they nested a half mile down our street, suddenly began to visit my parents' backyard. The wonder came to him when he could no longer make the pilgrimage to their nest.
During the pandemic, spending more time at my own home while our kids had remote schooling, I began a new springtime ritual of a morning bike ride followed by breakfast out on the deck overlooking my street.
Sure enough, the familiar flash of orange-gold followed by a distinctive call helped me recognize that a pair of hooded orioles were foraging in our yard, and nesting in a neighbor's palm tree across the street. I called dad immediately to let him know, and we shared the excitement of the first spotting all over again.
First Solo Spring
In the orange tree next to our outdoor trash bins, I localized the orange-gold shape behind the branches as the source of unique birdsong.
Just then, a neighbor's kid from across the street stepped out hauling his family's trash to their bins.
"Do you want to see something spectacular?" I asked him.
He crossed the street and approached, gasping as I pointed out the moving object in the trees. We inhabited a moment of quiet delight in the natural world.
Recognizing a song I'd not heard in a year; seeing a bird that brought back a joyful memory with dad; introducing a child to something stunning for the first time; finding beauty unexpectedly among trash bins; it was a perfect gateway to reverence.
This is my first spring since losing my dad, and I'm still on a high from the wave of wonder and nostalgia that washed over me at that moment.
