I've been reading a lot lately, since it's so pleasant to sit on the porch with a book. I just finished Diana Gabaldon's The Scottish Prisoner. It covers part of the period when Jamie Fraser was on parole from Ardsmuir Prisoner and serving as a groom at Helwater. This is after Culloden and Claire is back in her own time, pregnant with Brianna (although Jamie thinks the baby is a boy). Jamie and Geneva Dunsany's child, William is on the scene here, at age 2 or thereabouts, and it's so touching to read about him bonding with Jamie, although, of course, wee William has no idea Jamie is his Da.
Claire appears in this story in spirit. One of the things I loved about this book is how she is never far from Jamie's thoughts. In a chapter titled "Fridstool" Jamie walks into a glass walled conservatory with Lord John Gray and is assailed by the scents that greet him. Gabaldon writes, "for an instant, he smelled his wife's hair among them and gulped air as though he'd been shot in the lung." The reader who knows Claire and Jamie's story also gasps for breath. I cannot wait for the next book in the Outlander series, Written in My Own Heart's Blood.
As I am probably one of the most easily distracted people on the planet, while reading, writing, cleaning, thinking or checking my eyelids for cracks, I usually have one eye on the backyard action. Birds have been plentiful the past few weeks, especially cardinals and titmice. I love the titmice. They come flying into the yard in a pack (I call them The Gang of Twelve, because there are so many of them I can't count them and they are terrible bullies), swooping and screeching and generally scaring the squirrels out of their skins. The cardinals have begun to run with the titmice because when they're on the scene, the squirrels scatter. About mid afternoon I looked up from my book and saw a woodpecker fly up into one of the trees (still bare) and then onto the feeder. It was probably a Downy Woodpecker, but I think it might have been a Red Cockaded Woodpecker.
I spent 2 hours on the Iinternet this morning trying to find a stock photo of a Red, but this photo of a Downy was the best I could do.
At the feeder this little guy would nibble a seed then rock back and toss the shell into the air. That's when I would get the flash of red on his head. I spent about five minutes studying him before he flew off. I rarely see woodpeckers even though the woods behind my house are filled with longleaf pines, the preferred nesting tree for woodpeckers.
I wonder if the warm/cool/mild/rainy/warm/cool weather is giving the birds an opportunity to wander around and seek out new homes and nesting places. I'm so glad they stop by my feeders for seed and a sip.
What's going on outside the window at your place?
Happy writing (and bird watching).
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