My ears found this one for me. I was studying a beech tree when the mother’s chup chup calls grabbed my attention. She got closer and the calls jumped into a higher register, tink tink. Surely a nest must be close by. Junebug The Hound and I saw it at the same time: not a nest but a tiny fledgling in a blueberry bush.

Eight days ago this creature was inside an egg. Twelve days before that, the bird was just an egg and a sperm cell, yet to unite. In a couple of months this youngster will, with luck, be in the forests of the Yucatan in Mexico.

May the big raccoon that I saw up a neighboring tree find its dinner elsewhere tonight.