I babysit for an adorable sweet angel girl for the last year now, part time. She and her family live in the city of Philadelphia, in a three-story row house on a secondary street. Behind their house is a typically tiny yard (they are lucky and have grass instead of cement) with cement walls rising up just short of privacy on three sides. It is possible, therefore, to stand on a chair and see across the walls to everyone's backyards along their street and the street behind them. Standing on the ground allows one to see anyone else who may also be standing.
What I see every morning I am there is a festival of birds two courtyards over. The residents have put out several bird feeders. They also seem to be growing the sorts of plants and vines that birds love (whether that was intentional or not, I don't know). Each morning the birds are going crazy over there, fluttering around in great excitement and joy! It seems extra thrilling, somehow, to know that they are in the middle of an urban jungle; that at any moment a truck will rumble by and cause them to fly off in a spectacular frenzy.
I am not quite sure why I've never tried to capture them before now; though I do know that in the winter they are more kinetic and therefore more exciting (and last winter I was smoking still). I do know that I plan on bringing my zoom lens tomorrow.
I also know that sometimes just watching them is all I can do. Their sheer delight is contagious.
