The boys were at Pine Point at some jump-rope thing, so I took the two hours to walk the wetlands and woods of  Barn Island with my binoculars.  Redwinged blackbirds, barn swallows, osprey, white egrets, snowy egrets, yellowlegs, yellow warblers, yellowthroats . . . .  A cottontail nibbled in the shadows along the trail.  

A mink strutted out of the reeds five feet from the toe of my sandal.  A murdered field mouse dangled from its mouth.  It stared at me for a moment with its black and unreadable mink-eyes, then turned and slipped back the way it had come.