Spring Break

Last week was my Spring Break for Literacy Partners. One morning, I took a walk in Inwood Hill Park which is just a few minutes away from my home. This park has some great trails and some very old tall trees. It's a great place.

Recently, I have seen some people standing by themselves in the park with their arms and hands outstretched. It has seemed strange to me and I have wondered what they were doing. Were they praying? Were they doing a rain dance? I didn't know. My roommate, Brent, had also seen these individuals in the park and wondered what they were up to. One day he came home and told me he had figured it out. He was near one of these people on the trail...they had their arms stretched out like tree branches...and he saw a tiny bird with a white body and a black cap fly toward the person, hover over their arms, and then land on their fingertips. He was amazed and decided to try it himself. He could hardly believe it when another one of these friendly little birds landed on this outstretched fingers. He told me about it and I decided I had to try it out for myself.

So, on my walk the other morning, I saw one of these little black-capped chickadees hopping around in the branches of a tree. I stopped and tried to look as much like a tree as possible...arms out, fingers extended, eyes looking straight ahead. To my delight, the bird jumped from his branch and flew above my arm and then landed on my pointer finger. He looked at my face and then looked at my thumb. And then he started pecking at my thumbnail. Although the bird was very light, I could feel the strength of its claws gripping my finger. A couple of more pecks and then he was off to find a real worm. It made my day.