MOSIER — A few years ago, Mosier naturalist Brian Barrett looked up from his hammock and spotted a flock of slender, dark-brown, four-inch-long birds zooming overhead — all in the same direction. Intrigued, he climbed out for a better look.

When I was small, we went to the beach. Sand-blinded by wind, we staggered around beside the vast gray ocean, picking up bits of shell embedded in the sand. The biggest disappointment of my first meeting with the sea was a sad lack of sandpipers.

DALLESPORT — On July 6, a bald eaglet took flight at Horsethief Lake in Dallesport, Washington. Shortly after taking flight, the eaglet got caught upside down in a tree, hanging by one talon.

So far as I can learn, nobody knows for sure why birds sing in big choruses at dawn.

Years ago, on an oak-covered hill, I found a slender white oak that was hollow, like a tube. About three feet up, part of the trunk ended in a little round hole. By sticking my nose down the hole and wrapping my hands around my face to exclude the sun, I could see all the way to the bottom, where half-a-dozen or so pearlescent, streaked eggs gleamed in a little heap of brown fur.