Just wondering...

Sometimes when you are retired and it is too chilly to work outside my mind starts to wonder or is it wander?  Like I wonder how this mountain peak showed up in our back yard over the winter.

And I like birds (sorry Jan); so I wonder if the robin in my back yard is the same one that was there last year?

Did he remember that I had a convenient place to bathe or get a drink and want to return to raise the next generation?  How would you know since they all look alike?  I wonder...

Well, the robins don't all look alike.  Take for example this albino robin that someone spotted in Park Rapids last year and told me precisely what yard to go in town to see it. 

I went to that yard and sure enough I was able to get a picture of this unusual creature.  I wonder if the other robins think he/she is nice looking or odd?  I also wondered if per chance this year that robin would return to the same yard where I had seen it last year.  Hmmm...so on the way to church Sunday I suggested we drive by that yard, thinking there is no way the albino would be anywhere to be seen.

But much to my surprise, there she/he was.  It was in the same yard that we had seen it a year ago.

Granted, the robin was a little far away to get a picture, and not wanting to be late for church, I was only able to get a distant shot.  But there was no doubt it was the same bird.  I wonder where it wintered?  I wonder how in the world it could find its way back to the same yard in northern Minnesota?  I wonder why or what urge made it want to return to the same place?  I wonder what creative mind could program a creature to do that?  (I think I know the answer to that one).  So the robin you see in your back yard may be the same one you saw last year, and the year before...

Then I wonder why a Chickadee thinks it is a wren?

And why a tan-striped sparrow....

hangs around with a white-striped sparrow when we humans have such a hard time being around others who are different from us?  Oh my, so many things to wonder about.