Today Was Pretend Retirement Day

How do you want to retire?

I doubt my retirement will differ much from my working years. I’m not particularly interested in not working on something, so maybe I’ll just do something more in line with my hobbies and not 40 hours a week.

If I were retired, I’d still be active and running around looking for birds, like I did today. I’d spend even more time with the horses and go around traveling, too, long as I have a horse sitter.

I’ll probably drive Lee bonkers just like today, when I disappeared into a nature preserve and didn’t realize he couldn’t track me or that I had taken the car keys. I felt awful about that.

BUT I found a hidden Audubon Society trail next to a fishery and made Lee take me in there. It was really something!

The trail goes through undisturbed land covered in native vegetation, which the builders have kindly labeled. I wish I could have stayed longer. As it is, I heard or saw five new birds, on top of two I found near the condo.

• *Northern Rough-winged Swallow
• Northern Waterthrush
• Bridled Titmouse
• Olive-sided Flycatcher
• Mexican Duck
• Phainopepla (condo) (looks like a solid black Cardinal with red eyes)
• Black-throated Sparrow (condo)

There was even a family of Mexican ducks, which do live up here.

I was so excited that I lost track of time. Plus there were squirrels and a sweet deer.

I’ll have to go back before I leave, and to the nearby wetland preserve. These are in an area called Page Creek, where there are lots of wineries. In total, today I saw or heard 38 birds!

It’s no Antelope Canyon, but with all the fruit trees and native plants, I sure did better with birds today. Retired me will look for these hidden gems.