Name that bird

The clouds broke ranks and Amelia, bone-frozen, seized the moment. Dragging a chair into a bath-warm swatch of sunlight, she began thawing out.

She’d shed her beanie when a flicker in the bushes caught her gaze. It was a tiny bird with a theatrical flourish of red, like a superhero’s mask, across its eyes and beak.

Its presence oddly delighted her. Desperate to identify it, she reached for her phone, but then froze. Holy shit, I’m becoming my mother, she thought. “But I’m too young!” she said aloud.

Startled, the bird took flight, just as the clouds closed in.

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