The phantom oriole has been spotted

Katherine has been telling me for years now that she's seen orioles in our yard. I personally have never witnessed any of these visitations, and basically attributed it to too many white mochas. Well, I finally did see one last night as we were out starting up a fire in the backyard.

Which brought back a high school memory. Biology class, around 1974, project: the nesting behavior of the Baltimore Oriole. I believe we were in 4-person teams. For two weeks we would head out into the woods behind Rosemount Sr. High. In those two weeks, the number of orioles spotted---zero. The grade on our project---A. We had mastered the necessary art of bullshit. Of course it helped that one of our teammates was like the smartest girl in the school. I believe she now has a Ph.D and heads a pathology laboratory at Northwestern College. (not the one in Roseville)