A Bird in the Hand...

I think we all know the formula, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." But what is the value of "two birds on your sofa"?

I did not intend to puzzle over this today, but as you know from my recent post on mixed emotions, I have a burgeoning relationship with many of the birds that live near me. Just now, from my work space at home, I heard the familiar sound of a small feathered head banging repeatedly into a glass pane. I walked into the family room to investigate and discovered two Nightingales, closely resembling the two in the photo above, perched on my sofa. Each bore the distinct expression of a bird trying to pretend it had not just been caught in the act of eyeing my fish tank.

As I approached to open a screen and clear their path to the wild, one flew back to the kitchen and made his way outside through the sliding doors. The other, crashed into the window a couple more times, briefly hid behind the curtain, then dropped to the floor and scuttled under the sofa to hide. 

My enterprising wife, once again demonstrating her skills as a "bird-whisperer", was able to pick him up and transport him gently to the backyard where she set him free. I was greatly impressed and wished that I too could have such a close and constructive encounter with a wild animal. This of course brought the old formula to mind; was her brief episode of intimate contact, of personal interaction with nature, really only as special as an episode involving two birds in a bush?

An economist might apply the rules of resource availability and suggest that the relative scarcity of birds in the hand make them worth well more than two, relatively abundant, birds in the bush. I would concur. But I will leave the actual analysis to imaginary readers (like JD) who majored in economics and, hopefully, can derive the value of birds that sit neither in your hand nor in the bush, but on your sofa.