A Gem Worth Waiting For

This evening I arrived home from work and after visiting with Laura about our respective days, I poured a couple of glasses of Merlot, sat down at the dining room table and glanced out the window to the small pond I have in the back yard. Just then a small bird dropped from the trees to the water. And there it was. A bird I had never seen before. But not just any bird. It was a species that had captured my interest when I first began birding 34 years ago and had been one of my favorites since then. Not that I haven't looked for it before. Dad and I had looked a couple of times in northern Minnesota many years ago, I missed a female at High Island, TX, and only a couple of years ago we looked for a male that had been observed singing in the Pryor Mountains but I struck out each time. To tell you the truth, I hadn't really looked too hard for it in other places because I really wanted to see one in Montana and I hoped it would eventually be a male. Today it happened. All my work troubles and worries disappeared in the instant I saw the bird. After some exclamation to Laura that I can't remember now but probably went something like "Oh my God...." I ran to the car and grabbed the camera. I was able to get downstairs and into the backyard in time to watch the bird for about 30 seconds and get a few not-so-great photos before an incoming robin flushed it and I lost track of it in the trees. I waited for a while but never saw the bird again.

It is not often that I get to see a life bird, state bird, and yard bird all at once.



Here it is - a male Black-throated Blue Warbler. A gem worth waiting for.