Other People’s Lists

Once a year or so, whether it needs it or not, the stack of papers in my workroom gets a quick sort. My method is archeological, and among the prizes in the deeper strata this morning was a scrap of a notebook page I picked up somewhere along the trail this past summer. It was a bird list, in a neat (and thus probably a woman’s) hand. Unremarkable, all in all, but for a single, unannotated entry: Orchard Oriole.

And now, of course, I wonder. Was there an Arizona Orchard Oriole this summer none of the rest of us heard about? Or does the bird owe its unlikely presence on the list to a simple slip of the pen? Or (my theory) is it all an elaborate hoax concocted to help me procrastinate as I try to finish writing a difficult article?