Our capacity to be surprised

I saw my first varied thrush years ago when I ventured from Indiana to spend a summer working in Mt. Rainier National Park. I've associated this bird and its haunting song with remote, mossy, primitive places ever since. 

But I just saw a varied thrush in my backyard. In Shoreline. The robins didn't care for him and gave him a hard time. But for a little while, I had a varied thrush in my backyard. And I expanded my impression of backyard bird-dom from crows, robins, chickadees, juncoes, flickers and the occasional hummingbird to include a varied thrush.

Nature is never static. In the city, that sometimes means dealing with fallen branches, mossy driveways or flooding resulting from massive amounts of impervious surfaces. But sometimes it means seeing baby birds in a nest, or a opossum's eyes shining back in the dark, or a violet blooming where we didn't plant one, or a crow hopping across a street at a crosswalk. Sometimes we encourage these surprises by leaving a dead snag standing in our yard, or by weeding. Sometimes we encourage surprises just by being ready to stop what we're doing and look a little more closely. I hope I never grow so preoccupied that I lose my capacity to be surprised by nature's fresh views right in the backyard that I think I know so well.