“Birdwatching is exciting,” I’d said, “because birds are easy to see, easy to identify, great in numbers and variety, beautiful to observe, and attractive to hear.”
On this May morning, as I walked into Prospect Park, the trill and chirp of various birds filled my ears. I could make out the birds singing each song, the black throated green warbler, the chickadee, and the wood thrush with its clear, flutelike sound. I stood beneath the blooming trees and lifted my face upward where the birds perched high above me.
Something caught my eye. At first, I thought it was a crow. But then I saw its yellow bill. My mind raced through all the birds I had memorized, alphabetically, the red-eyed vireo and scarlet tanager, the northern cardinal and rose-breasted grosbeak. But it was none of these. I was almost certain that I was looking at a yellow-billed magpie, a bird that did not migrate east. I stood staring up at that bird until my neck ached and my fingers gripping the binoculars grew numb. A yellow-billed magpie, I knew, had no reason to be in Brooklyn, New York.
I recorded my observations in my notebook, then slowly made my way home, imagining how I would call my local birdwatching club and report my discovery. Maybe I would even get on the news with Roger Grimsby. I could see myself in Prospect Park, under the trees, getting interviewed live. I could warn the population of Park Slope about the yellow-billed magpie. With its impressive sweeping tail, it was easy to admire. But like its cousin the crow, it could easily become a pest. Roger Grimsby and all of New York City would be impressed by my knowledge.
At my front door I paused. A small bundle of dried grass lay at the foot of the steps. With my toe I lifted the grass and saw that this was the nest I had watched all these weeks. The smallest slivers of blue eggshell still clung in places. But the birds were gone. They had flown away. Carefully, I picked up the nest, unsure of what else to do, and carried it inside with me.
At the grand staircase that led upstairs, I stood still, listening to the voices of my mother and Mr. Bishop from somewhere in the house.
“Pine,” he was saying, “to rid you of guilt. Honeysuckle to keep you from living in the past.”
I heard this and understood he had brought her a remedy too.
Since we’d moved in here, the house had smelled of paint and plaster, of cottonseed oil and sawdust. But as I stood holding that nest, the air smelled unfamiliar, like the strange Italian food my mother had been cooking and other unfamiliar smells, things I could not identify.
The excitement of my discovery began to fade. Gently, I placed the nest on the bottom step. These stairs had been covered in dark orange indoor outdoor carpeting when we’d moved in. My parents had spent hours on their hands and knees, removing it from the stairs and marveling at the fine wood beneath it. I could still see the circular motion of my mother’s hands as she’d nourished the wood, sanding it, then oiling it, until it gleamed like it did now.
I stepped outside, empty handed, and looked up and down the street, at the brownstones that needed repair, every one of them broken in some way. Nothing looked the same to me. I sat on the stoop and waited. Whether for my mother to come out, or my father to turn the corner, I could not say.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE AUTHOR WISHES to thank the Providence Area Writing Group for their comments and suggestions on many of these stories; the editors of the various journals and magazines where the stories first appeared; Yaddo; Marianne Merola and Meg Giles; Gail Hochman; Jill Bialosky; Gloria Hood; Melissa Hood; my husband, Lorne Adrain; and our son, Sam, whose love gives me strength.
More Praise for An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life “I’ve been reading and writing for around 65 years now, and how can it be that I’ve never read anything by—or even heard of—somebody as wonderful as Ann Hood? . . . An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life is . . . an antidote to the vulgarity, love-of-violence and bone-dumb stupidity we tend to encounter every day. . . . These tales are unpretentious, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but all written from a position of tenderness so profound that at any moment, on any page, feeling bursts, explodes, into painful knowledge or knowledgeable pain.”
—Carolyn See, Washington Post
“Humorous, heartfelt stories. . . . [Hood’s] quirky characterization, stylistic intelligence, and adroit timing combine to produce an ending that the reader feels in the gut. . . . A strong, fine collection overall.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[Hood] takes direct aim at failed relationships, sexual betrayals and encounters, death, family secrets, loss, and sudden, often incandescent epiphanies with a deceptively frank and luminous style that sensationalizes nothing but quietly strips away the layers of her troubled and stranded characters. . . . These beautiful tales resonate and shimmer and in their realistic way reveal the way we live now.”
—Sam Coale, Providence Journal
“Hood’s tales are sexy, silly and full of sympathy for trapped creatures of the feathered or human variety.”