Katydid

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Little friend among the tree-tops,
Chanting low your vesper hymns,
Never tiring,
Me inspiring,
Seated ‘neath the swaying limbs
Do you know your plaintive calling,
When the summer dew is falling,
Echoes sweeter through my brain
Than any soft, harmonic strain?
~Mrs. J. I. McKinney (“Katydid”), 1887

Flight

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“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who…looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space…on the infinite highway of the air.”  ~Wilbur Wright

Safety in numbers

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“If one bird foraging in a flock on the ground suddenly takes off, all other birds will take off immediately after, before they even know what’s going on.  The one who stays behind may be prey.”  ~Frans de Waal

Crossing the Mississippi – “Old Bridge”

The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge carries traffic across the Mississippi River at Memphis.  Also visible in the photos are two railroad bridges, the Frisco Bridge and the Harahan Bridge.

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“It seems safe to say that it is also the crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five.”  ~Mark Twain

Blue jay

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“Everyone likes birds.  What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?”  ~David Attenborough