Reflections

REFLECTIONS

Have you ever just been sitting there in your favorite chair, feeling a little beat after a tiring day? Of course you have. I was doing just that today, and in those kind of moments my mind usually just takes off. I sat there lazily staring out of the window, with the TV on in the background, and the more I stared the more the thoughts just hit me.

It was such a simple thing really, a few birds were chattering away on the feeder and others, just flew in gathered a seed then took off again. These were the black capped chickadee’s, always very polite and orderly with each other. The thought crossed my mind that it’s such a pity some people couldn‘t take a leaf out of their book and learn something. I sat there reflecting on the past summer and all the wonders that mother nature had brought to our door or window, for our enjoyment free of charge. Such a variety of birds. Now that I think of it, far more than I have ever seen in my life before in one place and yet they all got along so wonderfully well in perfect harmony.

It had started out with three families of robins who would wake us up in the early morning with their songs, closely followed with the songs of a pair of cardinals. At this time the trees were just in bloom with a new mantle of fresh green leaves to herald the spring and summer, also accompanied by the early flowers already in the gardens.

As the season moved along, we would be joined first by one species of bird and then another, at different times some would arrive and others would move on. By the end of the Summer we would eventually end up with visits from a whole variety which included a Baltimore oriole. I get a chuckle when I think of the first time we had a visit from him. We didn’t know what he was till we looked it up on the internet; then we started phoning around frantically trying to find a feeder for him. Eventually we ended up driving 16 kilometers to a store and $15 later we were on our way home. As it happens we had a feeder out for the hummingbirds, and this is what the oriole tried to drink from the first time we spotted him. It was the beautiful sound of his singing that caught my attention at first for I had not heard one before and sadly even his stay was just for a short time, until he made another appearance later in the season. The real surprise for me was when an indigo bunting made a one time only appearance. He was such a brilliant color of blue, so pretty and so unexpected too. The hummingbirds too were always a treat as they hovered at the feeder, sometimes perching on the bird rest to drink then they were gone so fast.

I glanced momentarily towards the TV, and sighed. Another bombing had taken place somewhere in the middle east, with many dead and injured, also a few more shootings had happened in the big city here, in what almost seems like a daily ritual nowadays. Yet the pundits would have one believe that the crime rate was in decline. Sometimes I really think they get their stat’s from a flea market!

I looked out the window again because a blue jay was squawking his head off, which gave me a chuckle and a light moments break from the humdrum world of TV. It wasn’t very long before we had the first american goldfinch’s arriving, for we had already got the nyger feeder out there. Once again, such beautiful birds and such vibrant colors!

Where we live is just a small apartment building in a typical small town away from the big city. At the back of the building is a very small quiet expanse of greenbelt that runs the length of the building, with grass, a few mature trees and a small hedge on the back of the property line. This is more than enough to give us a decent amount of privacy, where we can also enjoy the countryside and the joys of nature.

It seems such a shame really, that in order to slow down and appreciate the simple pleasures of life, one has to get older. I guess when people are younger and still in the workforce, they are busy trying to make a living and having good times. Understandably it’s relatively easy not to notice such things and they can just slip by you. Such a waste when you think about it at my stage of life. Gee, I must be getting old!

We were sitting bird watching one day when a couple of new faces showed up. This sent me scurrying to the computer to look them up for I wasn’t sure what kind of bird they were. That just shows how well I knew my birds but I was getting better. It turned out that we now had the common grackles and a purple finch or two. The finch was quite pretty with his purple vest and even the grackle was handsome dressed all in black. About this time I should mention that we also had three pairs of ground doves. Once in a while they would perch on the tree with the goldfinches, but mostly you had to look at the ground to see them foraging around, a thing I could overlook sometimes. Just like the juncos.

TV time again. Today I was watching a baseball game, shucks another loss, can’t seem to get any luck with the idiot box. At times I wonder why we bother with the cable TV for there never seems to be anything decent on and the news can be so depressing.

It was time for the leaves to change as we approached fall, and it was about this time that we got our latest new family members in the form of some nuthatches and three downy woodpeckers. I was a little surprised, because I had given up hope of ever seeing them in our back garden. This was because earlier we had put out a suet feeder and had no action, but here they were.

Even now, late in the year and already started into winter, we still have the woodpeckers, nuthatches and the black capped chickadees. Surprisingly, we still have an abundance of goldfinches. I thought they would have migrated south by now however; their coats seem to have changed and they look like they now sport a winter coat. Of course this would be so nice if they stay for the winter months. Unfortunately, the appearances of the blue jays are now getting more and more scarce and we had the one visit with the mystery birds. The closest we could find was that they sure looked like brown thrashers, but we haven’t determined that at this point.

In the political spectrum politicians jockeying for position, for it seems that their concerns lean more for their own ambitions and personal agenda’s, rather than the welfare of the country and its peoples best interests. Everybody is blaming everyone else for the woes of the World. Often I wonder, just who is running the country, or even, are they?

I cast my thoughts and eyes back to the window, it was so much more simple to just enjoy the pleasures of nature. Some of the birds seem to be so tame that at times, they keep coming right up to the window and looking in on us, almost as if they are telling us the feeders are getting low again. I thought just how lucky we were to have this so available, and at the same time, thinking of the poor devils in the trouble torn countries, so many dead or injured, too many homeless, and no food or water. It is so sad. I guess that’s when I started thinking more of the simple wonders of nature and the apparent destructive actions of mere man.

Strange really when one thinks of it; there is always lots of talk of technology and progress, with man forever coming up with new ideas to make life easier for people.

Yet it would really seem more like, forever making things much worse overall in the world, in regard to the environment and wildlife in general.

Oh how wonderful it must have been to live in a world before pollution and damage to the ozone layer.

True, one cannot stay forever mired in the past. Yet at the same time, look where technology has taken us so far today. We seem to be always in a downward spiral, as we fumble with ideas of how to correct the damage

man has done this far.

It’s hard to believe that for a world that has existed and survived disasters for millions of years, it has only taken man about two hundred years to bring us to the stage we are at now.

With global warming, ice caps and glaziers melting, changes in the weather patterns which translates into more severe storms, creating devastation around the world, such as we have never seen before. In truth, the very survival of the human race now seems threatened.

There is so much that we as a race of people need to learn from nature. The wildlife, even the lifestyle and teachings of the North American Indian, but in particular for me, the birds. Perhaps it is already too late for this phase of world history. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that it isn’t so.

I turned my attention back to the window and the birds. Life is so much simpler this way.