‘They’re back early,’ I hear Agatha say behind me. 

     She is perched in the lilac, a rare moment of still, her rust feathers and speckled underbelly oddly suited to the lavender and hunter green. 

     ‘I was thinking that very same thing,’ I say, and Agatha’s amber eye gleams with smile. She prides herself in being first to voice a thought. 

     Priscilla and Carl have returned. My guess would be three weeks earlier than last year. Maybe the flying was good. Maybe they received word of our mild winter. I’ll ask later when they’ve settled in. 

     Agatha and I watch them dart and titter over the new cut pasture, fresh as if they’d flown in from the farm down the road and not from who knows how many hundreds of miles away. 

     ‘You’d think they’d want to rest a bit after coming all that way,’ Agatha says.

     And I nod to let her know she has beat me to the punch again ...said exactly what was on my mind ...and in the lilac I know her eyes are diamonds.