Hello. My name is Ray Pruett and I live over on Linden, the gray house with the good-sized spruce out front. I put this up because I couldn't stand the thought of you going the whole spring not knowing.

Here is the whole offer, plain as I can make it: if there is a bird you keep hearing out in your yard but can never once manage to lay eyes on, I will come over and stand out there with you and tell you what it is. By ear. You don't have to see it, and neither do I — that's sort of the trick of the thing — and it is FREE. ←← (I mean that. Free.)

I've done this two hundred-some times now, mostly for folks right around here, and I've got a little system to it. When you call, you just describe the call to me the best you can. If you can whistle it, go on and whistle it right into the telephone — I don't mind one bit, I rather like it. Now most folks tell me they can't describe it right. That's fine. That's most everybody, honest. We'll figure it out together once I'm standing in the yard, and half the time the fellow up in the tree starts in again while we're waiting and that settles the whole matter.

I want to say it once more so it's clear: it doesn't cost a thing. I'm not selling you anything. I haven't got anything to sell. I just happen to know the birds around these blocks pretty cold, and it seems a shame for a person to spend a whole season listening to a neighbor they were never properly introduced to.

And here's the part I like, if you'll let me put it in — a bird you hear and never see is keeping you company the entire time just the same. You've got somebody up in that tree singing away all morning, and the minute you've got a name to put on him, you start hearing him everywhere, and it's the funniest thing, it's like your yard got about twice as big. That's the honest truth of it and it's the best part of the whole job.

So pull yourself a tab down there if you'd like me to come. My number's on every one of them. Call any evening after supper and I'll set a morning. — Ray

or find me on the computer, if you've got one of those:
http://www.pinelake.net/~rpruett/hear-it-in-the-pines/somewhere-past-the-second-fence/green-and-out-of-sight