We can see the flocks of gray-headed snowbirds through our high-powered binoculars, as they make their annual trek back up the I-95 eastern migration corridor to northern climes, where they will spend the spring and summer months babysitting their third and fourth generation of progeny. For free. Science has yet to figure out the logical reason for this: the best guesses involve some kind of imprinting.

We are close enough to hear the rumble of their RVs and see the “license plates” that they have been tagged with by the government agency that keeps track of their numbers and habitats. Each night on their annual week-long journey north, just before sunset, snowbirds will take freeway exits, looking for a safe places where they can secure food, shelter and rest to prepare themselves for another long day’s odyssey. By dark, the parking lots of diverse Wal-Marts and Cracker Barrels will be thick with flocks of snowbirds returning to their ancestral homes, driven by blind animal instinct. Trained birders will chuckle at the awkward dance of the short-legged toilet runner, stare in awe at the blue-haired mahjong player, enjoy the rolling gait of the bald iron-seat as he climbs from the cabin of his Winnebago after putting 500 nonstop miles on the road in a single day.