No two alike

I’m looking out my “office” window right now. “Office” is in scare quotes, because my office is really just a corner of my living room. Anyway, there is a bird perched on top of my backyard gate, with his head turned toward something, looking for all the world as though he was scanning the sky for UFOs, or possibly posing for a portrait. He’s been frozen there in that position for so long, in fact, that I wonder if he’s still alive. But how would he remain upright otherwise? 

I can’t really take a picture because the blinds are down, though the slats are open. I try to remember sometimes to open the blinds all the way because I like to take pictures of the backyard wildlife, and I tend to scare them away when I pull open the blinds. 

This bird, though. He’s definitely watching something. His head moved slightly, so I know he’s alive, but he hasn’t moved from his perch in six or seven minutes now. I’m going to open the blinds to take a picture. We’ll see how determined he is to remain in place. 

He moved, but only slightly. He didn't fly away. The picture isn't very good because the window has a screen. According to Google Lens, he's a robin. Actually, based on coloring, it's more likely that SHE is a robin. Here I was thinking that she was some sort of exotic and rare example of avian stoicism, and it turns out that she's a robin, one of a million. But let's call her one IN a million, because I have never seen a bird stand its ground like that when the blinds open. She's a gangster. 

She stood her ground, even
when the blinds opened. Gangster. 

*****

As I've mentioned before, my desk window looks out into the side yard, adjoining the neighbor's side yard, which attracts many and various birds. Although this one was a bird of the most common type, it was not unreasonable to expect something more unusual, based on my previous experience watching out this window. I've seen some pretty interesting birds out there, let me tell you. But maybe that's just human prejudice on my part, judging the interestingness of a bird by the rarity of the type and not by the bird's own merits. This one had personality and spunk. Robins are a dime a dozen in this town, but no two are alike.