Kids say the darndest things

There were quite a few young 'uns at yesterday's hummingbird banding session, especially for a Friday. Two boys, the younger barely chest-high to the table and the older not much bigger, were peppering scribe Phyllis and me with questions. As I pulled a female Black-chinned out of a bag, I told them in a kind but firm way that we needed to concentrate on this bird now so that we would get her on her way back to her nest, and so we couldn't answer any questions for a little while. There was a moment of thoughtful silence from that corner of the table, followed by that classic query of the extremely young, "Why?" Phyllis and I kept right on working. A couple more "whys" from both boys, also ignored. Then, just to show that these were not just random "whys," the older one asked, "Why can't you answer any questions?" It was beginning to sound like a Bush administration press conference. --SW