The Red-Winged Blackbird

“Sue, what’s the name of the bird that’s black with red on its wings?”

FlickrCommons Photo by dbaron

With little, if any, trace of irony in her voice, Sue replies “Why Beth, that’s the red-winged blackbird.”

I still laugh whenever I remember Sue, my 92-year-old congregant and friend, smilingly telling me about the bird I was looking at.  Sue is my go-to gal for all things floral and faunal in our corner of the world.  “What flower is this?”; “What is this leaf?”  “Is this poisonous?”  “Why is a horned owl called a horned owl?” . . . Sue has all the answers to my many questions about the natural world.

But the best day was the day of the obvious answer – the answer that, in my certitude at my own ignorance of such things, never occurred to me – the black bird with the red wings is just that.

Now I am here in Scotland and Sue is back home from a winter away with family.

I hope her days are filled with red-winged blackbirds, obvious questions with equally obvious answers and silly friends brave or foolish enough to ask.