A real south Louisiana spring day, the temperature mild under cloud-laden skies, the breeze pouring in from over the gulf, fresh and salty, a neighborhood schoolyard flowing with green clover in bloom, the scent borne over the playground fence.

Listened to a warbler's song, loud and lusty, and heard, for the first time in several years, the call of a mourning dove.

The famous two-note 'rusty gate' call of a blue jay floated down from the right side of the street, in a steady cadence, and then, from the left side, the same song, the timing of its seesaw beat more rapid than the call from the right. It was as though one bird was on a slower train than the other, each singing to the tempo of the wheels against the tracks.