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birds

GOD’S CREATION: BUILDING A NEST

Back in February our church held it’s yearly grand fund-raiser – a silent auction.  The organizing committee really pulled out all the stops and created an incredible evening of fun and entertainment.  Our Fellowship Hall was transformed into something that resembled a New Orleans night club/café.  Sparkling gold, green and purple beads and baubles decorated tall round café tables and stools, and similar colors decorated the walls and the many tables cram-packed with items for the silent auction.

One side classroom held some very yummy food – and plenty of it!  I went back a couple of times because there was just so much to choose from and it was all very appetizing.  (Church ladies sure know how to cook!)  The other side classroom was a fun “ticket auction” area.  You bought a sheet of tickets that all had the same number on and you went round the room looking at the various items displayed and each one had a plastic cup in front of it.  If you liked an item, you tore off a ticket (or more than one) and popped into the cup.   You maintained the stub which carried the same number as the tickets.

Both the silent auction and the ticket auction were closed at the same time.  We had made bids on a few items and were happy to win a couple, especially tickets for a showing of the Peking Acrobats which were dated for our wedding anniversarySmile.  When the results were displayed for the numbers pulled from the ticket auction, we were even more happy to discover that we had won several items including a “Bird/Garden Basket”.  The basket contained several different items including a fun, round, hanging bird house painted bright blue with a straw thatched roof which we hung from a small tree at the back of our yard.

About the same time that I first noticed my Baltimore Oriole, I also noticed a small bird “checking out” the blue bird house.  After observing him a couple of times I identified him as a Carolina Chickadee.  He would sit on the branch that the house hung from and then he’d sit on the peg just below the opening into the house and kind of look in.  Then he’d hop back on the branch.  He did this several times and then he actually put his head inside the opening before hopping back onto the branch. 

This “checking out” continued for several days until one day he brought his mate to check it out too.  They would both pop their heads in and out, then fly back on the branch, then after a while they would fly off.   About a week ago only one of them came but this time he actually went inside the house.  He stayed a few moments then flew off.  This continued for a couple of days and then, as I was sunbathing, I heard this rhythmic tapping coming from inside the bird house.  It went on for a few minutes, then the Chickadee flew out.  He returned another day to do some more tapping.

Finally, two days ago as I was in my early morning quiet time with God, I noticed the Chickadee making repeated fly offs back and forth to the house.  He was most definitely on a mission, flying off then returning about a minute later and going right into the bird house; out again and back a minute later.  So I grabbed the binoculars, watched closely, and realized he was carrying tufts of stuff into the house.  Bingo!  He was nest making.  Since then they have both been back and forth carrying more stuff in to create a soft nest.

Yesterday, while I was out of the house, Richard said he saw an amazing sight.  He had glanced over at the bird house and noticed a squirrel on the branch sniffing out the house.  All of a sudden the two Chickadees appeared and started puffing themselves up, hunching their wings forward and beating them back and forth making a loud whirring noise as they hovered in front of the squirrel.  When that didn’t budge him, they “dive-bombed” him, actually hitting him with their wings, and he finally ran off.

This truly confirmed that we have “guests” in the garden and that they had set up home and were protecting their territory.  We are now looking forward to watching the family form and hopefully we will see the little ones when they begin emerging.  What an amazing creation God has made.   

Musings: A New Visitor

About three weeks ago I was sitting in my lanai enjoying my God time and breakfast.  I was so aware of the presence of God through His creation.  Squirrels were scampering in the trees and enjoying breakfast at their feeders.  Birds were calling out to their mates or calling out for prospective mates and swooping in to the feeders on the back fence of the garden.  The trees and plants were budding out and everything had that lush look about it.  The bare threads of winter were fast being replaced.

I was very familiar with many of the birds, those I could see and those I could hear.  The sweet Titmice and many Sparrows jostled for spots on the feeders until the Cardinal appeared and claimed his place as “numero uno” in the pecking order!  Some Bluebirds and Blue Jays flew across the garden creating magnificent flashes of blue.  Occasionally a Blue Jay would drop onto the back fence, wait for the other birds to finish and leave, before hopping down to pick a seed or two, bang it open on the fence top, and then fly off.

Mocking Birds were aggressively buzzing the back yard and each other.  I saw quite a bit of spring rivalry as one male chased another away from his prospective mate.  Then he began courting the female but she was playing hard-to-get.  And in between whiles, the first Humming Birds were starting to visit their feeders on a more regular basis.

High up in the trees, Crows would sit, each one claiming the pinnacle of a pine tree as his particular castle, and then would begin a cacophony of sound as they started their orchestral system of communication.  Joining them from time to time could be heard the piercing shrieks of the Red Shouldered Hawk as he flew from tree to tree crying out for a mate to join him.  From somewhere deep inside the small pinewood out back I could here the drilling of a Woodpecker on a tree trunk. And then a small, chunky House Wren decided to join my garden group and sang out his rich morning song; such a loud voice for such a small bird.

Then suddenly, from quite close by, I heard an unusual, never-before-heard, loud dry chatter. I looked up and around.  The noise had seemed to come from my Bottle Brush tree which now stands about twelve to fifteen foot high.  It was aflame with spring blooms and rich with new spring growth foliage.  Then I heard the chatter again and caught a glimpse of something large and yellowish.  The bird was definitely as big as a mature Cardinal but seemed slimmer, more elongated.  But he was operating deep inside the tree and I could only catch occasional glimpses of flashing gold movement.

The next day, amid the same lively performance from all the usual birds, I again heard the loud dry chatter.  This time I was prepared with binoculars close at hand, but my new visitor was more elusive than the day before.  He seemed to bury himself even deeper into the tree and only at the last moment, as he lifted up in flight to leave, did I catch a quick sighting, a magnificent flash of rich deep gold as he flew up and away.  This was way too tantalizing.  I searched through my Kenn Kaufman bird book and thought perhaps it might be a female Summer Tanager.

The next day I heard the now familiar chatter and, after some minutes scrutinizing the tree, I got my first real clear sighting.  He had come out on a branch on my side of the tree.  This placed him in plain sight and also put him in the slightly shadowed part of the tree which meant there was no sun shining directly on him.  And there he was in all his glory.  From just under the beak area he was a rich golden reddish orange that went all the way down under his belly getting slightly paler in shade as it disappeared between his legs and back towards his under tail.  His whole face and continuing over the crown of his head, down his back to his upper tail was black, while his wings had a touch of light gold at the shoulders but were black with distinct white markings.

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He was a beauty, about 8-9  inches long.  I began frantically flipping pages in the Kaufman.  Triumphantly I came across a page full of Orioles, and there was my visitor.  And visitor he was; a rarely-seen-in-the-south Baltimore Oriole. The picture was a perfect match and the description of his call note was exactly what I had been hearing – a dry chatter.  I was so thrilled to have identified him, and so happy that he had chosen my Bottle Brush as his breakfast spot.

He came every day for about two and a half weeks and my husband was able to get some good photos of him.  Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, he seems to have disappeared.  Today is the fourth day that I have not heard his chatter nor seen his regal flash of gold.  Even as I feel somewhat sad, I am grateful that I had the opportunity to make his acquaintance.  But, in the meantime, as though in recompense, I have been treated to another new sighting.  But that’s fodder for another blog.

Musings: Further Along The Road

Once again I have been on a writing hiatus.  It has led me to realize that I am unable to multi-task on many levels.  I have always understood “multi-tasking” to mean the ability to do more than one specific task at a time.  I am sure I have already mentioned in previous postings that this is very difficult for me to do. My brain and my body just don’t function well in multi-tasking mode.

I am always so amazed when I walk by my husband when he is working at his computer. I really should say “computers” – plural, because, although he has one computer (on his main desk – I’ll explain in a minute!), he has two screens and sometimes he is multi-tasking between the two and sometimes he is also multi-tasking on each screen.  My brain just cannot hold that!  It’s way too mind-boggling for me.

Apart from his main desk, he also has a secondary desk which holds another computer and recording equipment which he uses to create his “podcasts”.  When he is all set up to record in that space, it looks rather like an old-fashioned radio show.  He wears headphones and has a microphone in front of him and I almost expect him to break out into acapella singing.  Since he has been indulging in this activity, which is all linked to his web page work, (www.windowsobserver.com), I sometimes think of the computer room/office as a recording studio too.

The lessons I have learned about myself in the last couple of months are myriad.  I have lost three friends in that time frame.  Two were “expected”.  Is death ever expected?  The two people, although unconnected in any other way, had actually been struggling with the same lung disease over several years.  The third friend’s death came out of left field and left me, and many other common friends as well as his wife, completely mind- and heart-slammed. The first friend, died on 26th October 2011, the second friend died about mid-November, and the third friend died 16 December.

In other words, just as I was absorbing the news of one death the second occurred, and so it was for the third.  In the meantime, as death was occurring, life was going on.  Normal everyday events, commitments, and activities continued on despite what was going on in heart and mind.  Meetings were attended, friends were attended to, school and its accompanying homework had to be dealt with, volunteer commitments were kept, I participated in a retreat, Thanksgiving came and went as did Christmas, and on and off, in the back of my mind, was the little nagging voice that said “I need to write”.

As I look back, I realize that I was actually multi-tasking in general across the board of all these events.  Just to be able to deal with everyday life as well as grieve, and support others who were grieving, was a huge multi-tasking effort of its own, and I am so grateful for my relationship with God and my strong support network of spiritual friends who help me to get through tough times such as these and still stay sane. 

But to hold all this together and allow the Muse of creativity to come forward is, for me, an impossible task.  I have to put great energy into honoring and dealing with difficult situations and emotions such as death and grief, and there is little energy left for anything else.  And I need to honor myself and where I’m at in all of that and allow the various processes to sweep through me.  It is all important to my personal and spiritual growth.

So now, as I sit here and look out my window (no working on the lanai today, we had a near-freeze last night!), I feel some of the tension surrounding these recent events slipping away.  Even though it is too cold to sit outside right now, the sun is shining brilliantly, the sky is that crisp, clean, light cerulean blue that only winter can bring forth, and I am breathing deeply and easily as I notice the hawks circling above the pine trees, the other birds swooping across and into the garden, and the squirrels frolicking on the backyard fence.  Muse is creeping slowly back into my heart, honoring and respecting where I have been and gently inviting my fingers to once again play across the keyboard and put the words on the screen.

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