At any rate, in keeping with the spirit of Q's corner, I wanted to report an exciting bird sighting at my house: a flock of Bushtits!
I didn't take that photo (found it online), as I am not the photographer that my mom is. About fifteen of these tiny fellows (they're only a bit bigger than hummingbirds) alighted in my neighbor's tree and made little pipping sounds!
About that tree: I don't have a back yard so much as a four-foot-wide patio that backs right onto my neighbor's yard. The neighbor has a six-foot wooden fence. So when I sit outside, my view is of a giant fence with a tree rising up above it.
A couple days after we moved in, I was sitting outside, and all of a sudden I heard a voice. A voice saying things like, "How long have you been here?" and "Are you listening to me?" After some time it became clear that my neighbor was standing directly on the other side of the fence talking to me! I finally responded, which prompted her to exit her yard and come around to my patio. She brought her beer with her (it was ten in the morning) and proceeded to screech drunken nonsense at me for half an hour.
Which leads me to my point about the tree: in my one and only conversation with this neighbor, she informed me that the tree near the fence is the oldest tree in America. Yep. You heard it here, folks. It's a wonder we don't have a line of tourists out back, queued up to view the oldest tree in the land.
So, I saw a flock of Bushtits in the oldest tree in America!
Your pal,
Housefrau
