The Cat Sitter's Cradle

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Joyce said, “Come look at this, Dixie! I’m almost certain it’s a resplendent quetzal!”

I brought Rufus close to my side and pulled up next to Joyce. There on the ground was a parrotlike bird with bright green wings, a red breast, a banana yellow beak, and a fluffy chartreuse crest that sat atop its head like a fringed helmet. Its green tail feathers were easily three times the length of its body and looked like two long Christmas ribbons, gleaming with a violet iridescence.

I said, “Huh.”

Joyce said, “This may be the first resplendent quetzal ever seen in Florida!”

I said, “Huh?”

Rufus wagged his tail vigorously as if to make up for my ignorance.

Lord knows the Key has practically every bird known to man. They all touch down about the same time tourist season starts, so our little island’s population increases tenfold with both feathered and nonfeathered globe-trotters. Pelicans, parakeets, terns, plovers, spoonbills, egrets, herons—and those are just the ones you see every day. It’s a birder’s paradise. There are probably at least two hundred species of birds that make their way through the Key at some time of the year, so we might as well have a few resplendent whatchamacallits too.

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