Birds

Have you ever just sat and watched the birds?

I’ve always liked birds and I’ve always been interested in them but I never really took the time to sit and watch them until the quarantine/shutdown started. In March when the quarantine first started I was still in college (see the previous blog) and I didn’t have a lot of time for anything but trying to finish the semester dealing with very unusual circumstances. I had one college-age child trying to finish up the semester online and I had a middle schooler trying to finish up the school year at home, it was a very interesting and as Thomas Paine would say "These are the times that try men’s souls.". When the semester finally ended and we were still in a state shut down I decided to get the birdfeeders out, clean them up, and get them filled with food for my little bird friends. I started going out onto our back porch early every morning to do my yoga and have my quiet time. My quiet time consists of my Bible reading and my morning devotional. Throughout this whole time, my devotional has been focused on learning about different women of the bible (it’s been a very interesting devotion which has three parts and when I finish all three I’ll do a review). After my quiet time, I would just sit and watch the birds. It was during this time that I started noticing different kinds of birds that I’ve never noticed before. I started to listen to the different calls and trying to identify which bird was which by sound. I also noticed the interactions between the male and the female of the species.

We have this one red cardinal and he is very dark red, I named him Red Daddy. At the time that I noticed him, I also noticed several other male cardinals who are not as brightly colored as Red Daddy. I observed that when he was around the female Cardinals tended to flock, for a lack of a better word, to him and just completely ignore the other Cardinals. Eventually, I also noticed that he was the only male cardinal around, I guess he’s made this his territory and ran all the other males off.

Now you know that the male of the bird species is always the more brightly colored that’s to attract mates and the female is a lighter color that’s for camouflage and hiding on the nest. I just thought it was very interesting the way these females reacted to this very brightly colored male. Other than the interactions between the birds themselves I also began to notice something else about birds based partly on what I noticed about the male cardinals. I started to pay attention and I noticed that when an environment is not good for these birds regardless of whether they are male or female they don’t stick around. I let myself run out of birdseed and when I didn’t fill the birdfeeder back up immediately I noticed that the birds didn’t come. I also observed that when I filled the birdfeeder back up it took a couple of days for them to realize the food was back and then they were there all the time.
You see it’s not just about any one particular thing it’s about all things of the environment. Birds need food, water, shelter, and companionship in their environment. If they don’t have the things that they need to sustain themselves they leave. It made me wonder about humans.  Why can’t we see that our environment is not sustainable for our existence? In answer to my question, I think we can. I think what holds us to the ground is the fact that unlike birds we can’t just fly away. If a spot is not good for a bird they can just fly to another spot and start all over again but people aren’t like that. We get bogged down by responsibilities and obligations, maybe different people are depending on us or we don’t have the financial means to make our flight. We’re just not birds! Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes a person may say my environment is not good for me and make up excuses just to leave, but at other times the environment is bad and they do need to take that step and get out.

I guess taking that Biology course this past spring really put my scientific brain into overdrive, it seems that I am always making some sort of observation lately.

That’s my two cents worth, what’s yours?