Of A Tufted Titmouse

I played Chopin’s Nocturnes over and over while reading my John William’s book “Stoner” the other day.  They were so gentle and sad, like the protagonist’s life and I was almost felt as though they sounded like a cliché.  Had someone already used this sound track to evoke aching pain in a movie I’d recently sat through?

Today, learning from the other day’s compromised earbud bike ride I decided to head up to through town to the river crossing with my phone in my pocket.  Chopin didn’t sound cliched this time.  Instead it was lovely, though I couldn’t get the poor pun of choppin’ wood out of my head: “Who’s a Polish woodcutter?”  Mist swung against my face as I made my way along.  I want to be sure to have my hood on.  It was the first time I’d ridden with my big, puffy orange coat, as I long knew I would have to one day resort to.

Back home there was a lot of traffic at the bird feeder.  Good to see.  I photographed a few birds in a row, as close as my Pixel 3 phone would allow me in.  Later, when I tried to crop the photos the photo editing tool wouldn’t let me save what I’d cropped.  It wasn’t first time I’d had this issue.   But then I noticed, when I was trying to find a way to save things that the AI in the phone was anticipating that I might want to know what bird that was and that your photograph there, was of a Tufted Titmouse. 

I’ve certainly heard that bird name, as well as Chickadee before.  This was certainly a lot easier than thumbing through the field guide I otherwise had on the table.  There I found one or another bird that looked very much like my target creature, only to learn that they were confined to the southwest of the United States.  Youtube suggested it knew exactly what a Tufted Titmouse looked like.  I was probably the millionth person to have gone through this routine.  Marvelous, to have the information suddenly provided to me this way but unsettling as it was so easy that it lost some of its value that research, and deliberation might have otherwise anchored the discovery.

Monday 11/18/19