Fiction | January 06, 2022
The Last Reported Sighting of the European Goldfinch
The Last Reported Sighting of the European Goldfinch in Michigan
David M. Sheridan
When my friend Essa said, some years ago, that she had become a “birder,” I couldn’t place the word. I thought she was telling me that she had been diagnosed with some kind of mental condition. I think my mind connected the word with “birdbrain.” I grew to understand that she was merely saying she likes birds a lot. She had purchased an expensive pair of binoculars just to look at them. She and her daughter, Jade, had begun journeying to distant locations where rare birds are known to hang out, and occasionally Essa would text me a photograph of some notable species they encountered: a brown thrasher, an indigo bunting, an evening grosbeak.
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