Bird Study

10/10/12

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. George Eliot

Our summer birds must be in pursuit of a new season as well, because it’s awfully quiet around here.

The flitting and fighting of the hummingbirds at our window feeders ended last Wednesday. Nary a one since then.

As I mentioned in a "Scriptural Bird Watching" blog, I can gain much insight into life lessons while just watching the “goings-on" of birds right outside our kitchen window.

BIRDS---providing a visual “spread” as they come to our backyard to picnic. The feast has really been ours. A feast of never ending chatter---going to miss it---even the jay’s throaty mocking chatter, a raucous ole bird indeed.

Also going to miss….. our robins easing us into the dawn as they search the yard near Grushkin’s fence for fat worms. This week I’ve only seen one.

…..Resident red shouldered hawk---who sits and patrols from the top of Grushkin’s fence and swoops and scares (a striking terror, of sorts) our songirds. Sometimes the fleeing and scattering ones fly right into our windows   Haven’t seen him either, though he did leave a trace of last night’s dinner. Some feathers on the patio and clumps of them in the yard.

During the last days of summer (which extends past the designated calendar date for our birds) our patio resembled a big dining table for the birds (and squirrels) as gold finches still flaunted their colors from atop the umbrella domed feeder, woodpeckers lunched on squares of suet cakes in a little wooden house feeder and carolina chickadees feasted at the cylindrical wired feeder while nearby hummers were taking their last few sips, from their tubes that stick to our windows and are filled with red “hubby” created nectar, before they left us for the winter.

Cardinals offered the male’s brilliant red color, though I am drawn to the muted color of the female with her contrasting orange beak---and both chattered and hopped on the wrought iron table and chairs. A baby was hatched nearby this summer so we watched the mom feed him seeds as if breaking them open on his beak. Though a male, he had a dull coat---as he had yet to gain the brilliance of his manliness or the height of his crest (but a prodigy, none the same) and his mom distinguished herself, for me, as “queen of the moms” as I watched her care for him.

Nowadays I’m only seeing ground feeding doves joining with squirrels as they dig in the grasses weighted with seed that has fallen underneath the feeders---even the chipmunks seem to fill their cheeky pouches there

At twilight the cooing of the dove and the plaintive cry of the whippoorwills no longer blend with the call of the crickets. The crickets are gone too. So quiet.

Most leave. Fewer stay, even with our “buffet” of feeders. Where do they go? Peterson Field Guide to Birds can give us answers as can National Geographic. But….who tells the birds? The Bible gives us that answer---from the creation story in Genesis to Isaiah and the reference from the OT book of Job and on in to Matthew in the NT.

7 But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; 8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. 9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? (Job 12:7-9) 

“Tell” in verse 7 is a Hebrew word that translates as an explanation by way of illustration. In other words, look at the birds. Study and learn from them. Don’t miss the life lessons God has for you ---even if it comes from something as simple as bird watching.

I’ve enjoyed the lessons and the pleasure of His creation, which brings so much activity and “noise” to our yard.

I’m going to miss it all---farewell, my fine feathered friends! You’ve been a great study!