Last weekend, finding myself in Ithaca, I took the opportunity to visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's bird sanctuary at Sapsucker Woods. It was a treat. It happened to be a good time of year to see woodpeckers in particular. Now, it stands to a reason that a bird sanctuary run by one of the world's great ornithology research centers should offer the chance to see birds in greater numbers and varieties than you'd ever see at any one time here in Somerville -- and it did in fact. But here's the thing: of the two dozen-odd birds that I saw, only three were species I had never seen in Somerville. And I have every expectation that those three -- red-bellied woodpecker, tree swallow, and golden-crowned kinglet -- will be spotted here sometime, on the theory that more or less everything shows up in Somerville at some point.
Which bring us to the towhee pictured above. For years I had been thinking that one day, I was certain to see a towhee here in Somerville. After all, they're common enough not ten miles north, in the Middlesex Fells. So today I go out in my backyard, and there it is -- a towhee at last.
