The photo above was taken at the Detroit Zoo in April 2022,
and this entry was adapted from previously published posts.

In her paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes:

There is a game birders play on New Year’s Day called “Bird of the Year.” The very first bird you see on the first day of the new year is your theme bird for the next 365 days. It might seem a curious custom, but people who watch birds regularly are always contriving ways to keep themselves interested. This is one of those ways. You are given the possibility of creating something extraordinary — a Year of the Osprey, Year of the Pileated Woodpecker, Year of the Trumpeter Swan. This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, new bird.

Our family has played this game for so long that we now rework the rules a bit each year rather than risk getting the same birds again and again. And again. This year, as in the last two, I chose the first bird I espied on our first walk of the new year: Yesterday, as we neared the creek where we play Pooh Cones, I beheld a tiny tree in which at least eight American robins were flitting.