Our Little Warbler
Recently River and I have begun visiting Mt. Auburn Cemetary in the mornings. It’s near the house, quiet, and very nice.
On Friday morning River was awake especially early and when we got to the cemetary, the large gates were closed and there was a sign saying that the cemetary opens at 8AM.
Then I noticed that there was a pedestrian gate that was open. River and I squeezed the stroller through and discovered half a dozen people standing just inside the entrance. All of them had binoculars and notebooks in their hands. I asked them if it was okay to be on the grounds before they opened and they said it was okay if I was a birder. Playfully, I said that we might have just become birders. “What kind of birds should we look for?” I asked.
“Warblers.”
“Got it. We’re looking for warblers,” I replied, and then walked on.
If you haven’t seen it, the Mt. Auburn is really big. (More than 170 acres, according to wikipedia). The walk started to get longer than we had intended and River started to get a little fussy. As we started up a gentle hill he started making noises. They sounded like Ehhhhh. EhhhhHHHHH.
As we neared the top of the hill, I tried to distract River by telling him about the beautiful tree we were about to pass. How its blossoms were bright green and made a nice soft-looking carpet on the ground. He responded with louder Ehhhhhh noises.
Just as we crested the hill I looked down and saw 24 eyeballs staring at me through binoculars, all hoping to see a most unusual sounding bird, and instead got a very common pair of homo sapiens and a bright orange stroller.
Most of them started cracking up laughing. One took a picture. Our little Warbler made some friends!