> I always thought I was reasonably observant, but two things happened recently that surprised me. In each case, something was brought to my attention that I had never noticed before, and suddenly I could see it everywhere.
> [...]

> Ever since the Great Spur-Winged Plover Debate, I kid you not, I have seen the darn things EVERYWHERE. I've seen them in the horse paddocks down the road from my house as I drove past. I saw dozens of them beside the motorway last week when I took Wolf's in-laws to Goat Island. Suddenly the world is INFESTED with spur-winged plovers, a bird I had never, ever seen before, anywhere, except at Ardmore Airfield.
>

I know exactly what you mean. I once heard (maybe from Barrie) that the reason we have a "Starling infestation" in North America is that a 19th century Shakespearean lover brought breeding birds over from England and they got loose, multiplied, and out-competed native birds. Before I heard about this, I'd never seen them; but now that I know, I see them *everywhere*.

There has to be a word, or some common phrase, to describe whenever one's awareness is drawn to a new phenomenon like this and "then you see it everywhere." It's called something like synchronism, syzygetics, synchronous serendipity, or something like that.


> The second incident was that Wolf's in-laws mentioned to me the warm, floral scent of the air in New Zealand. I thought they were mental. I've been to the tropics, and places like Samoa or Vanuatu DO have air redolent with a warm, heavy tropical perfume. New Zealand DOES NOT. It never has. Except that now it does, because ever since they told me so, I've been able to smell the flowers on the breeze and everything I breathe is warm garden-scented.
>
> It's amazing.

Wow. You mind if I, like, print out and frame those last seven sentences describing NZ epiphenomena, B-G? "Everything I breathe is now flowers on the breeze and air redolent with warm garden scents." Oh man, you live in a PARADISE, right.

Wolf "can hear my m-i-l going 'What?'... LOL" spirit