Nature and Birds in Southern Ontario, Canada
I’d have to say my favourite bird song is the chickadee’s “fee bee, fee bee.”
There is something about the touching simplicity of it that goes straight to the soul.
There is also the exquisite beauty of the cardinal’s rapturous song and I’ve heard that the nightingale is not bad….
The northern flicker showed up in the vegetable garden when I went to refill my watering can.
With his festive attire of grey hat with a beautiful splash of red in the back; speckled waistcoat and jacket and black cravat; I picture the northern flicker as the ringleader of a bird circus.
He is a very jolly bird to see first thing in the morning and for that I am grateful.
I saw a male cardinal feeding his wife a piece of suet that he found this morning for breakfast. And I saw a common grackle taking a piece of suet to the bird bath and eating it with water. He thought, “I don’t know what this junk is, but it is likely to get stuck in my throat and kill me if I don’t wash it down with water.”
The male cardinal wins for ‘best husband’ and the common grackle wins for ‘smartest bird I saw this morning’.
I was out early watering the garden and heard the beautiful, plaintive, flute-like notes of the mourning doves.
It reminded me of how affectionate the mourning doves are with each other and that it is now June, the month of weddings.
I remembered a quote from ‘Abdu’l-Baha about marriage and about doves:
The baby robin stood on the edge of the birdbath hesitating. He knew that he wanted to go in the water, but he was scared because it was his first time.
It reminded me of the time I was in the second grade and my beloved school teacher pushed me into the pool during a field trip when I didn’t want to go in. I didn’t like her after that.
I went to my bedroom to get socks because the weather here had turned obscenely cold with a harsh rain coming down. (I hope my newly-planted vegetable plants don’t mind.)
Then I saw, to my complete joy, a hummingbird in the bushes outside my window. She was gently hovering around the delicate pink flowers that my mother had planted in front of the house and that had climbed up to the top of the window.
She reminded me of the song, “Hummingbird”, by Seals and Crofts.
In this song, they talk about all the Sacred Beings that God sends to us to educate us. They are so precious and are only here for a very short time, then they are gone. We don’t appreciate them while they are here, and when they are gone, it is too late.
There were three of them; a couple and I don’t-know-who.
They were very trusting; they stayed only about seven feet in front of us, telling me that the only thing that people were throwing at them was bread. Life at the pond in St. John’s Conservation Area was good.
Then they, one by one, started to luxuriously lean their long necks back and stroke them on their feathers. Then they started to meticulously preen themselves. Then they stood up on one leg and stretched the other webbed-foot leg way back; then they wiggled their bums and sat down. Canada goose yoga.
Walking to the end of the land in Long Beach Conservation Area, I was looking up at the trees and all of a sudden, I saw to my complete shock and wonderment, a bald eagle land in the treetops.
“Ya Baha’u’llah! Ya Baha’u’llah! Ya Baha’u’llah! I said, (being a Baha’i).
It was the first time I had seen a bald eagle in person and it was a majestic moment.
P.S. The seagulls were harassing him. I don’t know why.
They are very romantic together; very affectionate.
They go out for a drink. They have some food. They preen themselves and each other; they make love and they spend the rest of the evening together on the telephone line.
They always have dates to go out for a drink together. They have ‘his’ and ‘her’ sides of the bird bath.
Mr. purple finch had a very long, animated and exquisitely beautiful one-sided conversation with his wife while hopping around her on the telephone line.
My Wylde Lyfe 