Florida Scrub-Jays…

How easy would it have been?  Two years ago when a friend was my chauffeur/tour guide to the more elusive birds of the greater Tampa Bay Area, why did I not appreciate the technology residing in my pocket and drop a pin to mark where we were when we found the Florida Scrub-Jays?  It was just an out of the way road with not much there but a few trees on one side of the road and power lines down the other.  We pulled over and waited, and he later said that he was beginning to think the birds wouldn’t come to investigate, and then there was one on the wire.  He was prepared with some nuts for them, and although I’d seen pictures of these birds landing on people’s heads and hands, I honestly didn’t expect to have that experience myself.  But I did.  And now I have a hankering to do it again, or maybe it’s just a desire to expand my little world beyond these four walls.  This last is an eastern Meadowlark I believe.  And these birding locations are kept on the down-low deliberately so the birds aren’t disturbed and their numbers will grow.  Of course I would be respectful if I got to see them again, if I’d only dropped a pin that day.