Bird perspective

We often have disagreements on whether to let nature take its course.  I think the question is like asking Where to step in the flowing stream?  Where is it proper to intervene?  Where to watch?  Where do we let the hawk roost? 

The lady in red

Is back feeding the ducks.

It snowed.

The ducks know

She is faithful.

We have a flock of sparrows

A few juncos

A pair of cardinals

Two squirrels.

They find the seed scattered

In our backyard,

In spots reasonably safe

From the hawk.

The hawk has taken

To sitting quietly on the fence.

My beloved shoos him away

Regularly.

He is just being a hawk

I say.

These are our birds

He says.

Bird ID

We are not power birders, my beloved and I.  We know just enough to impress people who know only the robin by sight.  Still, we know enough bird calls to know when something is new, and we know enough to listen to the Cornell Ornithology Lab*s bird recordings to figure things out.  We knew this bird sounded small and sparrow-like, even when we could not see it.  Now that we have identified the chipping sparrow, we won*t have to bother the cat for awhile.

The bird

In the maple tree

Across the street

Calls every morning.

We have never caught him

Out in the open.

Evenings we sat and listened

To the Cornell Ornithology Lab,

Bird call

After bird call,

Every possible sparrow.

The cat became tipsy

On bird calls.

Every possible sparrow.

Two weeks on

We figured it out:

A chipping sparrow.

Now we wait for his appearance.

Now the cat

Can finally relax.

Sparrow number three

It*s been a full day.  Now it is fuller.  I am wondering how many more baby sparrows are figuring out how to come up or down the vents.  The last one was covered in lint... which now makes me think perhaps the dryer vent...

I am greeted at the front door

With sparrow number three

In the daughter*s hand.

Yes

He is cute and small

Yes

I know people keep finches

As pets.

No

We can*t

No

I*m so sorry

He is cute and small.

I know

Some people do keep sparrows

In bird cages

As pets.

We still do not know

How numbers one and two

Came in.

Here is number three.

I imagine our walls

Filled with sparrows

Cheeping chirping sparrows.

They live in our walls

Somewhere

Somehow.

It seems the cat has decided

To adopt them all.

Sparrow number two

I know God cares for sparrows.  It*s in the Bible, after all.   Maybe the newly fledged sparrows are making their appearance, one at a time, every three days, for a reason.  God cares for the sparrows.  I know this.  I would prefer to contemplate such things outside of the house.

Sparrow number two

Arrived this morning

Next to the sliding glass doors

Inside.

Like sparrow number one,

We have no idea

How he got in,

How she got in.

The cat has never known such excitement.

Over the weekend

We eliminated the bathroom fan

As a source

Of entry.

We each have a theory

But no solution.

We each

Are gone

For the day.

The cat and turtle

Will hold down

The fort.

I have no idea what we will find

When we return.

Cowbird

How to make God laugh?  Make plans.  This seems one more illustration of this.  Think, Catharine:  why would there be one more largish bird left in the nest, without feathers?  One more cowbird for the world.   Not the plan.  Not the plan at all.

The plan

Was to empty the fan duct,

Make it impervious

To re-nesting sparrows.

God laughs at our plans,

Maybe not so much

To make us feel foolish

But maybe

To show us

There is always more

To the story.

My job was to clean out

Old nesting material.

At the end of the wadded grass and weeds

A baby bird fell out,

Naked and the size

Of a mostly grown sparrow.

We put him back,

Moved the task to fall.

Today we realized

It was probably

A cowbird.

We shoved a cowbird back

Into the sparrow*s nest.

Now there will be

One more cowbird

In the world.

Not exactly

The plan.

Still

It matters

To him or her

And cowbirds everywhere.

Sparrows

I can*t say I*m too upset about the sparrows nesting in the back light fixture, or the rabbits who live under the bushes in front, or that one time I found the mouse track in the snow in the front yard, the tail track behind the feet.  I like regular reminders that there are other worlds which impact my all too human one.  If they want to nest in the light fixture... so be it.

Last year the sparrows nested

In the back light fixture.

It has never worked anyway.

Birds came and went all summer.

We bear responsibility for broods upon broods

Of sparrows.

We vowed to seal it off

Before nests began

This year.

Then came the early spring.

It was beautiful.

We forgot.

The cycle has begun again.

Perhaps we will name them

This year.

Francis... waiting for a saint

I catch myself looking to follow others... hoping that the exact blueprint will show me step number one, then step number two.  Somehow they have figured out how to do it right.  I do this even when I know I would do something different anyway, or at least redefine it.  I remember my daughter, when she was five, being concerned about all the people who prayed to Mary.  Don*t they know they can go directly to Jesus? she asked. We must tell them.  Still... we have this wonderful calendar of saints, and the ways they followed Jesus.  We have saints for a reason.  They give us examples of people who were more fully themselves, the way God intended.  They show us the boots we are to fill... are our own.  Today, here, for me, it involves the sparrows.

It seemed Francis redefined

What the Church could be.

There are books after books

On the Church that re-emerged

When he heard and lived and sang

The Gospel,

Stripped naked in the square,

Preached to birds,

Even rescued worms

So they wouldn*t be stepped on.

I have waited for a Saint

To come,

Make big Yeti footprints

In the Himalayan mud;

Me, the small child

Wearing Daddy*s boots,

Could slip and trip

After him or her.

Today the sparrows

Nested In the light on the back of the house

Might be ready to fly.

The sparrows in the vent

On the side of the house

May have flown

Already.

All the sparrows knew

we had too much room

For just three people.

We were clearly safe to nest

And birth and house

Many more.