Deep in Rockville's industrial zone, I sat outside the auto body shop this
afternoon waiting for my car repairs to be finished (indoors, the waiting
area stank of cigarette smoke). I'd grabbed my binos from the glove
compartment just in case something other than a starling flew past the trash
dumpsters and the wrecked vehicles that covered the asphalt. To my
astonishment, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo immediately landed in a nearby tree! In
the next half hour I added to my site list Mockingbird, Chimney Swift,
Common Grackle (carrying food), Catbird (a pair; one of them carrying
nesting material), Cardinal, and the expected European Starling. From a more
distant patch of trees floated what sounded like the faint song of a Wood
Thrush. Instead of a boring wait, it was a refreshing interlude in the day.

Janet Millenson
Potomac, MD (Montgomery County)

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"Look at the birds!" -- Pascal the parrot