“Sue, what’s the name of the bird that’s black with red on its wings?”
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| FlickrCommons Photo by dbaron |
I still laugh whenever I remember Sue, my 92-year-old congregant and friend, smilingly telling me about the bird I was looking at. Sue is my go-to gal for all things floral and faunal in our corner of the world. “What flower is this?”; “What is this leaf?” “Is this poisonous?” “Why is a horned owl called a horned owl?” . . . Sue has all the answers to my many questions about the natural world.
But the best day was the day of the obvious answer – the answer that, in my certitude at my own ignorance of such things, never occurred to me – the black bird with the red wings is just that.
Now I am here in Scotland and Sue is back home from a winter away with family.
I hope her days are filled with red-winged blackbirds, obvious questions with equally obvious answers and silly friends brave or foolish enough to ask.
