Looking for a Rufous

What is serendipity? According to Merriam-Webster, it is “Luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for.”

Travel obviously is one opportunity for serendipity – discovering a new place to dive on the island of Kauai or seeing a double rainbow over the Columbia Gorge, things like that. Things that are not looked for . . . it could be financial, such as an unexpected inheritance or one of your children just announced they are going to have a baby. For me, a rufous-towhee (obviously) is always serendipity and a very good sign that things are looking up and the start of a great day.

How about this story, to be very specific about a “serendipitous event” (say that fast 10 times in a row). Over the weekend I was out doing a walk. The weather was decent (not raining), not too cold or too hot, and I was walking not too far from my home on a familiar route. Ahead I could see the big hill I was going to climb and thinking about the reward of the great view of my city at the top. But along the side of the street was “free stuff”, you know how people will put stuff out with a sign. As I passed the collection of mostly uninteresting stuff, I spied a coffee cup that caught my attention.

Heron Cup (front view)

As I’m sure you know if you read my blog, I’m a bird fancier, especially raptors, herons, and other species. Seeing a heron in real life of course is always a treat. Anyway, I grabbed the cup out of the stuff and strapped it to my fanny pack so I could continue my walk. Oh, almost forgot, here’s the  back of the cup. Note what it says.

Heron Cup (back view)

You can enlarge the image if you want, but here is what’s on the back of the cup. I’ll leave the interpretation up to you. One brief comment about the fifth bullet, that one clinched it for me – I always enjoy a good pun.

• Keep a keen lookout.
• Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet.
• Be patient.
• Look below the surface.
• Enjoy a good reed.
• Go fish.

Links:

Great blue heron (Thanks to arkive.org and the photographers who took the great photos.)

Things to Think About (Scroll through this category in my blog just for fun)

Mason Williams: Classical Gas

This entry was posted on November 5, 2015 at 3:38 am and is filed under People and Places, Random Reflections, Things to Think About. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.