Page 73 of Theo of Golden

“Well, I will have to add this to my list. I had never seen the nest of the Megaceryle alcyon before now. Did you know that this bird used to be on the Canadian five-dollar bill? Not any longer though. The poor creature was replaced by an astronaut. A pity.”

They returned to their bikes and took generous gulps of water. It was only nine a.m., but the temperature was rising steadily.

“Mr. Theo, there are several more stops on the tour, but they’re all close by. And they’re all on the way back to town. I planned on doing the hard one first. I don’t want you to get sunstroke on me ‘cause if you do you’re pretty much on your own. I’d have to drag you behind the Noble Invention. Not a pretty sight. Are you OK?”

“I’m fine, Ellen. And I have just seen the nest of a belted kingfisher. What a wonderful gift you have given me.”

“I’m glad you like it. I found it just for you. Most people don’t have any interest in things like that. I’m happy to have at least one eccentric friend.”

She chuckled. Irony.

They mounted their bikes and retraced their earlier ride. Theo felt a bit of tightness in his legs but said nothing of it. It was a refreshing pain.

The tour continued. It included nests of a Carolina wren (in an abandoned paint can under a wax myrtle bush), blue grosbeak (in a patch of blackberry vines on the far side of the bike path), and a brown-headed nuthatch (in a hollow fencepost at the corner of an abandoned lot).

Theo had already, long before then, logged each of these in his birding list. Still, he was enthralled to observe the delicate nests up close.

The last nest they observed belonged to red-winged blackbirds. It was built in reeds at the edge of the river. Three chicks and one unhatched gray-speckled egg lay in a cup of dried leaves, mud, and straw.

The adult male showed up in a tantrum as Theo and Ellen leaned close to admire the fragile new arrivals, necks stretched and mouths open in expectation of food.

“I found this one yesterday,” Ellen said. “And I named the babies. One is Theo, one is Rio — that means river in Spanish, and it rhymes with your name — and this little one is named Ibis. Have you ever read ‘The Scarlet Ibis’? Don’t. It’s a short story, but it will ‘buh-rake’ your heart.”

“Ellen, the red-winged blackbird is very special to me.”

His mind returned briefly to the long-ago moment of passing splendor, when the murmuration of starlings and redwings over the River Marne — like fifty thousand feathered treble hooks — ascended, pivoted, and pirouetted until his soul had been pierced with the beauty of their intricate dance.

Someday he might share that memory with Ellen, but, presently, the mother bird had returned and joined the tirade against the unwelcome visitors. Theo and Ellen moved away slowly, got on the bikes, and returned to their starting point.

They dismounted, drank water, shared a peach that Ellen had brought, and walked to the street. Once there, they got back on their bikes and rode to Jason’s shop.

Tony saw them from the Verbivore as they pedaled along Broadway. He hollered something in their direction. Theo waved proudly, and the Penny Loafers applauded.

At the bike shop, Ellen gave Jason an enthused report about their morning excursion.

“I took him all the way to the bluff, and he didn’t even have to stop a single time.”

When Theo tried to pay for the rental, Jason waved it off. “Y’all are good advertising.”

“I showed him how to hold his bottle, and he’s already a pro,” Ellen reported.

They exited the building and were saying their goodbyes on the sidewalk when Ellen reached into her bicycle basket. She pulled out an object with a strip of pink ribbon around it.

It was a piece of wood, the size and shape of a soup can. Both ends were flat and smooth. On one end, small holes — two or three dozen of them — had been drilled or punched into the wood. The bark of the tree, light gray, was still intact. Theo guessed it was maple or beech.

Ellen held it in both hands as if it were a trophy, one hand underneath and one encircling it, as she offered it to Theo. She clearly intended that Theo accept it as a gift.

“For me? Well, thank you, Ellen. It’s very kind of you.”

“Do you even know what it is? You might want to know what it is before you thank me.”

Theo looked at it studiously. Ellen spoke before he could make an incorrect guess.

“It’s called featherwood. I invented it. Here’s how you use it.”

Ellen reached into her basket once again and pulled out another item tied in ribbon. She held it up. “These are feathers I’ve found. I didn’t hurt any birds to get them. They were on the ground, and I just collected ‘em.”

She untied the ribbon. As Theo held the wood, she began to place individual feathers into each small hole. She did so with the carefulness of a florist arranging a bridal bouquet. The result was exquisite. Swatches of gray, brown, rose, red, blue, speckles, and white looked like a forest in miniature, a stand of conifers, broad at the bottoms, narrow at the tops, some tall and slender, others short and stubby.