Would you begrudge me the chance to see the beauty you display when a mate you find and upon a branch the two of you pass flowers to each other, feed each other, and rub bills?  Would you think me a voyeur for letting my eyes rest a while on that scene?

Did you feel me intrusive when, after I spied you and your friends dashing about the treetops, I gave chase and followed you through the thicket and woods?  Or did you notice the camera and, at least for an instant, stop to show off your unrivaled splendor?

Even as you held me with disadvantage through your erratic flits from treetop to treetop, always moving further uphill as I scampered along beneath, and even as your kith and kin scurried about on waxy wings through branches and foliage thick, more than once you drew near enough to meet my eyes from behind your dark mask.  Then away, away you flew, away toward what meal of fruit you might find for breakfast.

And I felt grateful for the encounter, brief though it was.

[Cedar waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum); although ubiquitous at White Rock Lake and something I’ve seen before, I drooled at the chance to capture an image or two of these magnificently exquisite birds; they offered me just such a chance last Saturday]