Watching animals, it’s tempting to ascribe human traits and personalities onto them. We give them our anxieties or sense of play, and when they look at us we like to think they understand. In some ways they do, but it is likely in their own way and not ours.

The other night I sat on my back porch listening to music and reading. A duet by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, “Just Someone I Used to Know”, came into the rotation and I perked up to listen. I hadn’t heard the song before and was taken by it.

At the same time a carolina wren started singing from the corner of the yard (they’re little birds, but loud). Then he was on a tree nearby, then in the bush at the corner of the porch where he waited, but didn’t sing. A cardinal joined him, hopping out onto the fence close to the house, looking around in a curious way. They didn’t stay long, and both flitted off before the end of the song.

It was probably coincidence, but I like to think that they, like me, were taken in by Dolly Parton singing about a lost love. Based on what little I know about mating patterns in songbirds, they probably know more about it than we do.