I am trying, slowly, to infect James with my interest in birding, or at least a vague understanding of why I like it. Mostly, this takes the form of “Look, wibbly! Northern flicker on the feeder!” James feigns interest well enough to seem polite, but not well enough to make me think he’s actually interested, although he has learned to loathe the northern flickers for drumming on the siding at 7 AM. I suppose loathing isn’t as good as interest, but at least he can tell what type of bird he hates, and one must concede that’s a start. (I have no illusions that he remembers the name, but at least he know what they look like. I think.)

Every now and then, however, I get a ray of hope. There’ll be a genuine “wow” or he’ll tell me about seeing an eagle fly over the office (which is near a bald eagle nesting area.) Today, as he was leaving for work, I heard “Hey! What kind of birds are those?”

I was forced to say, as gently as possible, “Those are robins, honey.”

We have a ways to go, but I’ll get ‘im yet.