I parked in the usual spot. Grabbed my bins. Opened the door. Stepped onto the night-cooled macadam.
The road was just where I’d left it some three months ago. That’s about how long Linda and I have been on the road.
Make that roads—lots of them. We’ve even been to a few places you cannot reach by road. But in all those thousands of miles of travel the road less traveled was precisely the road I missed most of all. This one. The road I walk every morning.
Now I was back. Anchored in the birding universe. Armed with a place to stand and optics in hand.
Remember what Archimedes said about a place to stand and a lever long enough? It applies to birding locations, too.
The moon was full. Stars dimmed. From somewhere overhead the call notes of migrating Swainson’s Thrushes put an X on the calendar and heralded the imminence of dawn.
Transients. Like I was just a few hours ago. Vagabonds.
And while I love traveling, seeing new places, engaging the birds that live there, I love coming home and reacquainting myself with the birds on my home turf.
It’s like pulling into the driveway and saying “Hi” to your neighbor. It’s like calling the post office and telling them to resume delivery. It’s…
“High time I called this meeting to order,” I said, aloud (because on the empty road there was nobody to hear, much less contradict me).
Facing the woods. Puckering up. I troubled the night with a warbled whistle that undulated up and down the musical scale.
This is just a long-winded way of saying I did a screech-owl imitation.
The bird responded on the second toot. A whinny. Not a warble. Came from the south side of the road.
“Odd,” I thought. “Bird’s usually on the north.”
Then a bird answered on the north. Then a third bird sounded off just west of Number 1. 
“Hot damn,” I thought, but couldn’t say. Territories north and south of the road this year. “Hot damn in stereo.”
I stopped whistling after a minute. The reaction was self-sustaining now. Birds on one side egging on the birds on the other.
Me? Well I’d said just about all I wanted to say. And what was that?
Just that “I was back on territory.” Just a courtesy call.
Next time I’d trouble those birds would be on the Christmas Bird Count. By the time I returned back to my car, they were silent.