No way to explain how I find the books I want. I’ve praised my favorite library and fussed about my least favorite. Maybe library sprites listen to what goes on in my private conversations and in my busy brain. Recently, I looked at my own poems and noticed how very many times I refer to birds. Well, if that’s a subtle theme, I thought, I should pay attention to it. So I told a friend that I wanted to study ornithology. Pretentious, that.

But the next time I walked into my local library, there was a fine new book by British writer Simon Barnes, The Meaning of Birds. I’ll be darned. Now my current notebook is full of quotes and details about birds, far more interesting than what I’ve gleaned over years of owning a traditional bird identification book. Looking a bird in the eye is not all there is to birding.

I scouted around, found my binoculars–Barnes calls them bins–and tucked them into a small pouch along with a pen and a few index cards (one of my indispensable tools as a writer) and put on my walking shoes. And sure enough, I saw a bird in a tree–no surprise that–and with the help of the bins I watched that patient creature long enough to describe it on a card. When I got home I determined that what I had met was a female flicker. Nice!

Maybe getting what I want in the world is mostly a matter of being ready to be surprised. I don’t really need a formal course in ornithology. I need to get out of the house and open my eyes. And, as Barnes advises, don’t leave the bins at home.