Nuthak

This is a Nuthatch. It’s an appropriate name as it’s derived from the Middle English word Nuthak, meaning nut-hacker. Are you with me so far? These birds traverse headfirst down trees, naturally hang upside to eat, and stuff nuts in crevices of trees to crack them open. Pretty ingenious, right? • If you enjoy these birds, check out Winter and the Nuthatch, a poem by Mary Oliver. The third and last stanza goes like this:

Nobody owns the sky or the trees,
Nobody owns the hearts of birds.
Still, being human and partial therefore to my own successes -
though not resentful of others fashioning theirs -

I’ll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early.