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“Tomorrow, close friends are arriving from England. One of them is a bird watcher, like you, he’s a ‘twitcher’.”
I knew about “twitchers”; It’s what serious bird watchers are called in England.
She knew she had my interest and continued: “There are three of them. Only one is a real “twitcher.” They fly into Dulles airport this afternoon. I am busy tomorrow morning; something I have to do. Will you take them for a walk along the river and show them some American birds?”
I said I would be happy to take her friends for a bird walk. With migrants arriving from the tropics, maybe I could show them a warbler or two. A time was set for her to deliver the three to me for a walk along the Potomac near McLean.
The friends, a gentleman and two ladies, were pleasant and, with reserved politeness, thanked me for my time.
It was late April and the world was at its most ephemerally beautiful. New, unfurled leaves of the tulip tree were of that shade of yellowish green that fades almost as soon as it appears, and the woods were layered with white blooms of dogwood. The river bank was covered by yellow trout lilies, white chickweed and the intense blue of Virginia blue bells. “If there are no exciting birds, I can always show them wildflowers,” I said to myself.
A Cardinal sang farther down the trail. I pointed out the song: my new friends stopped and listened. Suddenly the bird, a brilliant male, appeared on the branches of a dogwood not 15 feet from where we stood.
I heard a collective gasp. The gentleman — the serious “twitcher” — focused his binoculars on the red bird.
“I say,” he said.
Then again, in clipped and elegant speech, “I say, I’ve never seen anything like that.”
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