Where You're Supposed to Be

 [Blue-gray Gnatcatcher at Higbee Beach WMA, Cape May, NJ Saturday April 13, 2013. The black eyebrow indicates this is a male. Click to enlarge images.]

Do you ever suddenly feel like you're exactly where you're supposed to be? Hang onto those moments, the way I'll hang onto this simple April morning which began at Higbee Beach WMA, NJ, where birds cooperated maybe a bit more than usual and the sun shone, but other than that it was just another spring day and that leaves me wondering, does the feeling come from outside or within? If you could make a pill that put this feeling in a person, the world would beat a path to your mountaintop.

Sometimes I get bored with writing just bird reports. We feel feelings behind these feathers. You can tell from the pictures I saw gnatcatchers and Palm Warblers and some turkeys, and you can add this and that, a Blue-headed Vireo heard scolding, a Black-and-white Warbler singing. About what you'd expect at Higbee in early April, along with Vince Elia and Bill Boyle sightings, and Virginia and Molly and Karen and later more friends at the Beanery. Maybe that was it, good spirits all around, avian, human, and the Mourning Cloak lifting ahead on the trail.

I like it when birds let me get close, and today a few did, so that was good.  When a sweater is enough and a jacket too much. When today is Saturday so tomorrow is Sunday and not Monday. When the bluebells are mulched with leaf litter and the lawn doesn't yet need cutting and the dog snores next to me. Goldfinches on the feeder. A nap in the offing, more time with friends and a loop around the meadows tonight.

Hang onto these moments.

 [One of a small flock of Palm Warblers at Higbee this morning, in the second field, recently tilled, which they apparently liked.]

 

[Wild Turkey bringing sexy back.]