“That is the stupidest name for a group of birds I’ve ever heard.” Marie’s face puckered as it always did when she expressed her strong opinion about the unbelievable idiocy of someone or something in the world.

It made Dana’s want to shove Marie into the marshy water, but she resisted the urge by raising her binoculars and following an egret’s unhurried glide across the sky. Taking Marie out birding was a mistake, but their mother had insisted and Dana acquiesced, as always.

“A sedge.” Marie shook her head. “By far the stupidest.”

“How many could you possibly know?”

“What?” Marie turned around, shocked at the ripple of impatience in Dana’s tone.

“I said, how many names for groups of birds do you know? How do you know it is the stupidest?”

Marie glared and kicked up a cloud of dirt as she ground her heel into the trail. “Everyone knows they should just be called a flock.” She turned, startling a sparrow that had perched on a nearby thistle. “I’m going back to the car.”

Dana watched her go and took a deep breath that caught somewhere in the back of her throat. Sedge wasn’t a stupid name for a group of bitterns. It made sense. Both a bittern and a bit of sedge were easy to overlook, far from glamorous, and dull to the untrained eye. But they were both beautiful, if really seen. She swept her binoculars slowly and methodically across the marsh in front of her, but saw nothing but more sparrows and an egret. No bitterns today.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was Marie complaining that she didn’t have the keys to the car and was being eaten alive by mosquitos. Dana sighed as she put her binoculars in her bag and turned to go back to the carpark.

“I don’t think it’s a stupid name,” she said to no one in particular as she hung her head walking back to the car. “I’d love to see a sedge of bitterns.”

And behind her, from deep in the reeds, came a loud, watery plunk of the bittern’s call as if agreeing with her. She was still smiling when she reached the car and even Marie’s incessant whining couldn’t dampen Dana’s happiness. Maybe, one day, she’d find a sedge of bitterns after all.