2009: ROBINS AT THE FOUNTAIN

On the very cold morning of February 21, 2009, just as I was pouring that second cup of coffee in my kitchen, I looked out the back yard and saw a bird flutter very close to the window and land outside of my kitchen window, out of sight of my vantage point. Curious, I quietly moved to the back door and glanced out the window of the little space we call a shed. What I saw amazed me. First of all, I thought I had completely shut off the water for the winter. As it turned out, I must have left the basement faucet shut off valve a bit too loose. There were two robins catching the occasional drip from the faucet. I'm a bird lover, and have been feeding the birds for many years. Assuming the poor Robins were really thirsty, I went into the basement and got one of my aluminum paint trays and filled it with water and placed it within view of my kitchen window. What happened next astounded me. I went back to reading my newspapers, and maybe ten minutes later or so, glanced out the window and saw the amazing scene I captured in the photo above. Late February is usually the time the Robins come north in large flocks from their South Jersey and other southern spots in Delaware and Northern Virginia. These were the first harbingers of spring for the year 2009. The water level on that paint tray was nearly empty 15 minutes later when I left for my office at the library. I sent the photo to the Times, feeling sure that it would be a worthy subject, but it was never published.