Day 3

This morning I came out of the bathroom after my shower to find Jo and Fi curled up in her bed.

"Mama, Fiona and I are snuggled up," Jo shared very contentedly.

A few minutes later I checked in on them again and found them both with their noses in bird field guides. This past library visit Fiona checked out all the bird field guides in the children's section of the library. (Do not ask me where this keen interest in things scientific came from; it seems to be a strange aberration LK's and my artsy genes).

For two days they have been out birdwatching in the evening.

It all began when we came home Monday to find a pile of yellow and black feathers on the driveway and a smear of critter guts on the front walk. We very cleverly deduced that something predatory had gotten a bird. But we were not sure what the bird was. We used the clues in the leftover feathers to hunt down options. The feathers were dragged to school and daycare for consultation with various experts. Fearless Leader at school thought it might be northern flicker feathers. Jo's teacher admired them with just the right amount of attention to make him feel very clever. We found the northern flicker in our field guide at home and thought that it was an excellent identification.

Then off they went; two little bird watchers.

Fiona has a little pair of "binoculars" from some toy set that don't magnify anything much, but they make her feel like a scientist. And Jo tags along after here with his own identification process; everything is a chickadee or a northern flicker to him.

Now the collection of feathers sits on the dining room table waiting for Papa to come home from his field trip so we can show him. It can join the jawbone Fi has carefully arranged for display on the side deck.

I just had a mental flash forward to a house filled with a collection of Fi's scientific finds over the next hew years; a veritable museum of her discoveries. Oh dear, what have we begun?