Some of the more delightful moments birding this summer have occurred at unexpected times: riding my exercise bike, getting the mail and reading on my patio. In each case I saw something I hadn't seen before that provided unexpected beauty, added to my overall knowledge of birds, or created moments of reflection.

Brown-headed cowbirds aren't common in Woodbury in the summer however one morning while pedaling my exercise bike I was treated to a surprise. Several birds, which I thought were starlings, were on the apex of an adjacent house. Getting binoculars on them I saw that their heads were a rich brown and the bodies black in the strong light of an overcast sky. It was a group of four male brown-headed cowbirds. The last time I'd seen brown-headed cowbirds here was on a crisp morning this spring when I witnessed a male tearing around a bush after a female who left him in the lurch. Not missing a wing beat he flew after a second female and both disappeared. I couldn't tell whether they were playing or in the throes of an attempted mating.

Now a male foursome was on a roof against a backdrop of a sky that was almost completely covered in theatrical light and differing shades of gray clouds. The scene was right out of a Cecil B. DeMille film, The Ten Commandments, which I saw as a teenager. It was the climactic scene so rich in special effects that in my mind's eye I cannot help but compare any cloud-covered dramatic sky to it. This sky was indeed worthy of comparison. The light was so bright that the cowbirds, heads seemed almost wet, while their backs shimmered and glistened, appearing to be broken into sections where a line of feathers was highlighted.

Three of them raised their heads looking at that sky. What were they looking at? This was a gathering of ominous-looking birds; the scene was MacBethian. Then it turned gentle. One raised a wing that, when spread, looked like a vegetable steamer, another preened itself and a third bird lifted up its tail as it bent down to get something with the effect being that it was mooning someone. The light got dimmer while the sky remained a seamless array of clouds. Soon the birds flew off. But for the time that they were on that roof, the cowbirds and that sky turned an ordinary morning into a living painting. I spent the next few hours with a sense of inner quiet. Weeks later I still see those cowbirds against that sky which reverberated from my adolescence.

Later that afternoon while getting the mail I happened to glance up at the sky and saw a male red-winged blackbird harassing a red-tailed hawk. It is one of nature's oddities that these significantly smaller and aggressive birds chase raptors, which hunt small voles from the sky. Not too high above, the red-tail was doing a slow, tight circle followed by a male red-wing whose name derives from the orange/red epaulets on their shoulders. Male red-winged blackbirds are very territorial. They arrive in spring and claim territory while perching on a tree or tall shrub, letting out a continuous hoarse metallic call into the chill air to announce to every other red-wing that this territory is theirs. In the warmer weather, a hawk that strays into their territory may pay the price for intruding.

The male red-wing followed and with apparently no distance between the two, seemed to poke the hawk in the tail. The red-tail shot forward. This happened at least twice more. The jolt wasn't likely to have occurred for any reason other than a sharp poke. Soon the lone harasser was joined by two other male red-winged blackbirds. The hawk's circle widened and it went over the rooftops and out of sight. Hawks that I've seen confronted by male red-wings act like this one did. They at first seem nonchalant about it, almost as if the smaller pest isn't worth turning on. They never do; they turn tail and tool off. I've been fairly sure that the red-wings had poked the hawks before but I'd never had proof. Seeing this up closer than ever before while doing a routine chore was proof enough.

In the spring my wife likes to plant impatiens some in a wire planter, on a railing, filled with shredded coconut husk. It was with no small degree of consternation that I witnessed a mockingbird pecking at the husk about to fly off with it probably to use as nest material. I chased the bird off and felt like a monster. Last fall I witnessed three mockingbird nestlings across from my house being fed daily by two adults. On two occasions the adults looked straight at me. I saw their new digs after they moved around the corner and on occasion watched the juveniles fly. Figuratively l felt like a godfather to them and now I had turned on possibly one of my own.

After witnessing this act of theft again, my wife suggested to me a variation of, if you can't beat 'em join 'em: so I placed some leftover nest material out for the birds. It seemed to work. Sitting on our patio reading early one evening I watched a suede-skinned mocker come to the rail on which the planter rested. It looked around, pecked at a rose leaf and looking larger and clearer than life in the low light moved to the end of the planter. There it pecked at the coconut husk. I whistled at the bird in a failed attempt to scare it off, but the bird simply ignored me and flew off with a few strands. I sat there wondering if it was one of the nestlings from last summer that was now a thieving adult. Perhaps it was one of the adults that looked right at me that knew what dogs and little children know about me: I'm a soft touch. I reasoned, it's just a few strands. But then I wondered how my planter would survive a few strands every day? OK, that's it I firmly decided, next spring no more coconut husk liner! But then I conjectured, would they still come around to visit?