March 19th 2010    Tim Candler

    Towhee, always a harbinger.   They appear bad tempered, grim characters.   Black and orange with a white tummy.  They parade suddenly upon open ground before moving into the woodlands where they seem to completely disappear. 

     Every year we see a Towhee just before Tree Swallows arrive.    And in the barn I have spotted the white feather.   No clue where these white feathers come from, but every year about this time there is a white feather somewhere near or in the barn.  

    The reasonable person might not leap to those conclusions I am prone to.    I can understand how mystery quickly envelops imagination and how stories emerge to explain.    So my habit when I see these feathers is to say "Oh there they are!"  Rather than ask when, from where, why me.       

    But this year there are three white feathers in the barn and I have documented them.

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